misc. flowers

These are from my son's yard. They are less about the flowers themselves than they are about the Pentax 18-250mm lens that I rented for the trip to Quincy. Interesting lens. On the plus side the huge range is very handy. On the minus side any time you tilt the camera up or down the lens will extend or retract on its own. Most annoying. There is a lens lock that will keep that from happening, but it only works at the shortest focal length. A lock that worked no matter where the lens is in the zoom range would be nice.

While the lens works pretty well in bright light it struggles in shadows. I had to use +1 to +1.5 ev to correct the exposure. This seems to be common for any shot that doesn't have the sun directly behind you. Strangely, used indoors it seemed to expose much closer to neutral. I haven't figured out how I feel about the bokeh yet.

Overall the lens performs pretty well. I'd buy one used if I could find a good deal on one, but I wouldn't pay full street retail for one. Maybe more than a week with it is necessary to get a real feel for what the lens will do. Anyway, here's the pics.

Orange lily


Something purple


Another something purple


Yellow & orange. Burnt orange almost.


White lily


Daisy and a fly


Oh, I forgot to mention that these are a mix of hand-held and tripod shots. They were pretty universally soft, but responded very well to sharpening as you can see.