Last of the Dogwood Leaves

m8o

Since delivery of my Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5, it hasn't left the camera. (and I really need to take it off to send the camera in for repair already!) My favorite subjects seem to be my dogs and the Autum-turned Dogwood tree's leaves. One of my trees has just a few left. The sun going down in the backyard provides the most perfect back-lighting I can ever imagine. Note, these pics, shot RAW, really have no color or saturation boosting; just Lightroom's 'clarity'. Mainly just some sharpening... they're very close to as shot. What great sun I had this day. And sure enough, within about 15 minutes, the sun had passed further down and behind trees and luster was completely gone!!!

Also, I used the Pentax 1.7x AF TC with all these... making about a 212mm lens.

Some samples:







(this one was selected by a photographer I respect as the winner of the set)

an alternate angle a bit closer:


Closer still at a different angle again with a 'rule of 1/3rds' inspired crop:


[all & full-rez found @ Autumn Dogwood album | m8o | Fotki.com]

hope you enjoyed looking,
-steve

schmoo

Hi Steve,

I agree that the small window of magical sunset light is truly beautiful. I also think that backlighting colorful leaves is one of the best ways to showcase them. Great job utlizing both concepts here!

Marc Muench

Steve,

The small leaf in amungst all the sticks is a more telling composition than the closeups. Would love to see nothing but green behind it though

m8o

Marc Muench wrote:

Steve,

The small leaf in amungst all the sticks is a more telling composition than the closeups. Would love to see nothing but green behind it though

Thanx for that. I wish I could have, but I would have had to knock the fence down. hehe, kidding. Yes, that would have been my favorite too if not for the fence there. I should have gotten lower and shot up to cut the fence out of the frame. :cry Problem then tho is something else; I would have been looking down the leaf. And probably wouldn't have had enough DOF to keep most of it in focus; I have too many pix already of razor thin focus zones looking down the length of a leaf.

m8o

schmoo wrote:

Hi Steve,
I agree that the small window of magical sunset light is truly beautiful. I also think that backlighting colorful leaves is one of the best ways to showcase them. Great job utlizing both concepts here!

It feels good now that I'm "learning to see". What I'm more amazed of is I'm actually successful manual focusing now. I didn't think that would be possible my 1st few months of ownership. Well, that lens has a lot to do with it. The image really 'pops' when I achieve focus. I need to get a split screen for the viewfinder.