Fujifilm Announces New Firmware Update for the X-T1

Notice
We have found a malfunction in the firmware ver.4.20 launched on December 17 2015, which rarely causes freeze when shooting in AF-C mode. So we will suspend the disclosure of this firmware right away. We apologize for your inconvenience which this may cause. We will post an upgraded firmware around the end of January 2016 to solve it. As a tentative solution for customers who have upgraded their cameras to firmware ver.4.20, we have prepared the new firmware version of 4.21 whose functions are same as the previous version of 4.10. Please update your cameras to ver.4.21 to avoid the malfunction.

Genius and Invention ... is it In the Air?

Yes :-)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/12/in-the-air

One of Harper’s almost-legacies …

This is one of the effects of fracking from a town in Pennsylvania …

Even more impressive is the YouTube video from whence that came …

Remember the good ole days four years ago in 2011 when it was reported that Harper’s government had the power to stop fracking if the Council of Canadian Academies review suggested that it should be done?

And of course, since that time we all know what Harper did. He destroyed academic capability, ignored all academic and other expert input, muzzled all scientists – both public and private sector, and went merrily along the way with his pro-Alberta / burn down Ottawa’s power from the inside agenda.

He accomplished a lot of his goals and the Liberal government has a long row to hoe in order to get Canada back to being functional as more than just a place that big corporations go to rape and pillage the land for our resources.

We should thank our lucky stars every single day that Canada finally saw through Harper’s dictator style; his outright lies about the economy that he and his government (many of whom are coming out now and suggesting that they privately did not agree with his agenda) destroyed; and the freedoms he almost stole through his insidiously divisive politics.

Every day since the his ejection by election of a much better man is a great day for Canada.

The Squirrel Strikes Again …

My little squirrel image made it into the papers again this week in the Ourtown section heading. Thanks once again to Robbi Hay, the section’s editor.

Grab yourself a copy of the Citizen on Thursday to see what is happening over the next while in town.

Dog Plays Cat Chasing Mouse :-)

Gidget is a sweet little Dachshund and Cardigan Corgi mix who was feral exactly 1 year ago today. This is her first anniversary with her new mommy, who loves her very much.

While living with her new mommy, she has hunted in the back yard many times, bringing home a rabbit once, and probably other critters that are decaying under the deck by now.

However, her crown achievement is in mouse hunting, as demonstrated in the video below.

FUJIFILM ANNOUNCES A HIGH PERFORMANCE, 35MM FAST PRIME LENS AND A WEATHER RESISTANT 1.4X TELECONVERTER

Compact lightweight design, weather resistant structure and sharp images make these Fujinon lenses top performers

Valhalla, N.Y., October 21, 2015 – FUJIFILM Canada is proud to announce that the new "FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR" lens and the “FUJINON XF1.4x TC WR” teleconverter will be added to the Fujifilm X premium mirrorless camera lens line-up.

New FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR

The new FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR will be added to the premium X-Series mirrorless camera lens line-up in November 2015. The XF35mmF2 R WR (53mm in 35mm format equivalent) offers a focal length with the angle of view similar to that of the human eye, and a maximum aperture of F2.0.

The FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR gives users a superior prime lens that delivers sharp images with rich bokeh. The XF35mmF2 R WR has 9 lens elements in 6 groups (including two aspherical elements) and achieves the perfect balance of high image quality, compact size and autofocus speed as fast as 0.08 seconds. The exterior of the lens is weather and dust-resistant and can work in temperatures down to 14°F. The lens uses eight seals on the barrel to protect it from rain, dust and splashes of water when shooting outdoors. The XF35mmF2 R WR also uses an internal focus system that is combined with a stepping motor to produce quiet, accurate and fast autofocus - a must for all photographers that need to capture a spontaneous moment.

FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR key features summary:

• FUJIFILM X-Mount is compatible with all FUJIFILM X-Series interchangeable system cameras
• Weather-resistant design with 8 sealing points for weather- and dust-resistance and operation as low as 14°F
• Internal focusing system with 0.08 seconds autofocus speed and nearly silent operation
• 9 elements in 6 groups, including 2 ED glass lens elements to reduce lateral and axial chromatic aberration
• Nano-GI coating reduces ghosting and flare
• 9 blade aperture creates smooth and circular bokeh
• 1/3 EV steps
• Minimum working distance of approximately 13 inches.

New XF1.4 TC WR

The new FUJINON XF1.4X TC WR, a teleconverter extending the range of FUJINON XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR, will be added to the X-Series mirrorless camera lens line-up in November 2015. The XF1.4X TC WR will be compatible with select future lenses, including the FUJINON XF100-400mm lens, which is currently on the XF lens road map.

The FUJINON XF1.4X TC WR is a high-performance teleconverter capable of multiplying the focal length of the FUJINON XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR by 1.4x, (70-200mm equivalent). Although the aperture becomes one f-stop higher when mounted, the teleconverter features an excellent optical design with a construction of 7 elements in 3 groups to maintain the optical performance of the original lens. Also, thanks to the unified design, the teleconverter is weather and dust-resistant and operates at temperatures as low as 14°F. This makes it possible to be used with confidence outdoors when used with the weather and dust-resistant X-T1 camera body.

FUJINON XF1.4X TC WR key features summary:

• Multiplies focal length of FUJINON XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR by 1.4x
• Weather-resistant design for weather- and dust-resistance and operation as low as 14°F
• 7 elements in 3 groups
• AF speed equivalent to XF lens by itself is still achieved with the teleconverter
• Camera displays and records information reflecting the change in aperture and focal length when the teleconverter is mounted.

New Firmware

Fujifilm will release a new firmware update that is required for all Fujifilm X-Series camera bodies in order to provide full compatibility with the new lens and teleconverter. The firmware will be available on October 29, 2015.

Pricing and availability

The FUJINON XF35mmF2 R WR lens will be available in November 2015 for MSRP CAD $499.99.

The FUJINON XF1.4X TC WR teleconverter will be available in November 2015 for MSRP CAD $599.99.

About FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Electronic Imaging

For more information, please visit www.fujifilmusa.com/northamerica, go to www.twitter.com/fujifilmus to follow Fujifilm on Twitter, or go to www.facebook.com/FujifilmNorthAmerica to Like Fujifilm on Facebook. To receive news and information direct from Fujifilm via RSS, subscribe at www.fujifilmusa.com/rss.

FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, Japan brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including: healthcare, with medical systems, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics; graphic systems; highly functional materials, such as flat panel display materials; optical devices, such as broadcast and cinema lenses; digital imaging; and document products. These are based on a vast portfolio of chemical, mechanical, optical, electronic, software and production technologies. In the year ended March 31, 2015, the company had global revenues of $20.8 billion, at an exchange rate of 120 yen to the dollar. Fujifilm is committed to environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information, please visit: www.fujifilmholdings.com.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Matthew Schmidt
Fujifilm
(914) 789-8529
mschmidt@fujifilm.com

Our new Prime Minister – Justin Trudeau

I went back and found a video of his eulogy to his father, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. It is a wonderful speech, and shows just how well-bred and how human Justin has been all of his life. It is, in my opinion, required watching for everyone … and especially anyone who thinks that Justin is too young or just not ready or some such other inanity …

The Empire Strikes Out?

I have been pretty vocal during this election about the evil that is our current government and its “might as well be a” dictator …

He runs things like this is his personal kingdom and he is the Emperor … you know, from the Star Wars Empire :-)

So I got inspired earlier and cooked up an image of what I am so dearly hoping is about to happen … and as the first polls show a strong Liberal performance, I think I will unveil it now …

We can all hope that this plays out ….

REAL CHANGE

#heavesteve

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SUCCESS!!!

And so we have a historic majority for the Liberals. A good portion of the country saw that the emperor no longer had any clothes and that it was time to try something a bit different from the democracy-bashing, corruption-ridden, ideology-challenged, corporate-pandering, croney-favouring, science-hating decade that was ...

Published in the Ottawa Citizen on Thursday, 1 October

Again I thank Robbi Hay, the editor of the Ourtown section for putting my work out there.

Grab yourself a copy of the Citizen each Thursday to get the scoop on a lot of events throughout the region for this week and the near future.

BLOOD MOON at Perigee – 27 September 2015

A very rare event. A Super Moon coincident with the a total eclipse. The last time a total eclipse occurred in conjunction with a super moon was 1982. The next time will be 2033. And to sweeten the rarity, this was the 4th in a tetrad of total eclipses, itself a rare event.

I had minutes to capture it because we had cloud cover. I was out walking Sophie when I spotted a patch of clarity in the sky. And it seemed to be tracking towards the moon, so we truncated the walk (sorry Sophie) and wandered back to the house.

I ran around finding the GM1 and strapping it onto the back of the Tamron 500mm mirror lens (manual focus, adapted to m4/3 through an inexpensive adapter from eBay) and got it on the tripod about 3 minutes before the patch hit. I was frantically trying to get focus while the cloud thinned and in the end I think only 2 shots were at all sharp.

Even the patch I shot here only lasted about 5 seconds before more cloud intruded. But that was all that was needed. I shot at 1600 ISO because the blood moon has only the glow of the sun seen around the earth on it, i.e. it is pretty dark. The color is normally in shades of brown to red, so I processed it from raw in Lightroom CC with some help from DFINE for noise reduction based on color. I think this is decent when you consider that I shot at high ISO under time pressure on a camera that fits in a jacket pocket (although the lens most definitely does not.)

Panasonic GM1 with Tamron 500mm BBAR – f/8  4/10s  1600 ISO

I experimented in real time with really high ISO, but hedged my bets with a lower ISO at 1600 … that is what you see above. It is still extremely noisy as it was a dark image and I underexposed a bit. But with the help of Nik (Google) Define, I was able to bring it into a reasonable compromise between details and grain. Of course, Lightroom CC played a huge role too …

Now we wait for the next one …

The Last Diet Video You Will Ever Need To Watch

Trust me on this. This is the real deal, because it talks about behaviors and deals with all of the issues surrounding our incessant need to be doing something to lose weight.

Focus on health.

Thanks go to Dr. Yoni Freedhoff again for his blog Weighty Matters.

Make Windows 10 a bit more productive and allow it to feel more like Windows 7 in one easy step! **Updated**

I am not a shill, but I am going to mention for you a very nice little product that gives you back that Windows 7 style start menu and makes the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 utterly painless.

The product is called Start10 and comes from a company called Stardock.

I used the previous version of this product – Start8 – for years as I was an extremely early adopter of Windows 8. I always considered all the whinging over Windows 8’s Metro interface to be trivial and a waste of time. A quick Google search led you straight to Stardock and two key products – Start8, and ModernMix. Modernmix allowed Metro applications (now called Universal applications) to run inside a window in desktop mode, bridging the gap between the two GUIs. It was amazing, but Windows 10 does that for you now, so Modernmix will die off slowly (still useful for Windows 8 and 8.1 users though.)

Start10 takes the Windows 10 tiled start menu and adds back all the features you may have loved about the very mature Windows 7 menu. It is customizable so that you can choose to have it look more or less like Windows 10. I use the following style, which works perfectly for me:

You can customize the actual start button too. Many choices, although few appeal to me.

I like to pin certain apps to the start menu as shown above and others to the task bar. All in all, I find this extremely functional.

The app is 5 bucks. Anyone who thinks they would like to try it should just do it. Note: Start 8 was working fine for me as well after the upgrade. I decided, though, that the cheap upgrade made more sense. I spent a few minutes with the native Windows 10 start menu in between and I am not likely to go back.

YMMV of course.

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Update:

I should have waxed a bit more eloquently about other features in Start10, as some might look and say “no big deal.”

First, when you right click you get the familiar shortcuts to key maintenance items:

Second, the configuration interface is very slick and powerful, though simple.

As I mentioned in the first part of the article, I like the modern interface. Looks terrific and provides a Windows 7-like experience. The Windows 10 look is too much like the native look to appeal to me, but some may like it and use the extra configurability. Remember, this is a very inexpensive application, so trying it is worth your while if you find the native start menu in 10 to be limiting (and I sure did.) Note that you can choose to have the icon or leave it off in the modern style:

Your options for the actual start button are rather diverse, to say the least … the buttons are live in that they change color when you roll over them. The Triangle Two button is invisible, only appearing when you roll over it for example. Here is the full range of options:

It even allows you to choose your own image, as you can see at the bottom right …

Regarding the color of the menu etc., you can choose a solid or translucent menu and you can choose any background color. For example (and I am going to leave it like this for now):

You can also select many options on the Appearance sub menu, including a texture or image background for the start menu. You can pick your own image, too. Here is one of the stock ones:

And, as will be obvious, the Configure submenu will give you many options to customize what appears on the menu and how it is shown …

The Control panel allows you to configure the meaning of all possible gestures to launch Start10 and the Windows 10 native menu. If you like some aspects of the native menu, you can get at it easily using whatever gesture you choose:

I have the Windows key set to open the Windows 10 menu, which looks like:

And finally, the Desktop panel allows you to configure some of the more subtle aspects of the start menus.

I hope this was useful and I will reiterate one more time … I am not a shill and I have paid for every Stardock application I use. I just happen to think that they do very good work and these apps are useful to me.

Published again in the Ottawa Citizen …

Thanks again to Robbi Hay, editor of the Ottawa Citizen Ourtown section, for using one of my images as the header … this time it is the butterfly shot that was on the same plant as last week’s Hummingbird.

Here is a sample of the page, and please grab one to see the latest happenings in Ottawa for this weekend and beyond.

Published in the Ottawa Citizen this week ….

Robbi Hay, editor of the Ottawa Citizen Ourtown section, sent me a note that my hummingbird image will again head up the section this Thursday the 20th of August. I always enjoy being published in the Citizen so again my thanks to Robbi.

A sample of the page … grab the paper this Thursday to see all that there is to do in this great city this weekend and beyond …

Edge of Stability

A time lapse video from Jeff Boyce showing stormy weather from 6 weeks of this summer. Very well shot and edited. A treat ...

Edge of Stability from Jeff Boyce on Vimeo.

This entire timelapse sequence was recording between May and June of 2015. During this time, I managed to arrange about 5 weeks off from my regular job as a Police Officer in California, and set out in my truck with no particular destination in mind. I had only picked up photography as a hobby within the last couple years, and this was my first year ever recording or producing timelapse videos. Having always been very interested in severe weather, nature, and traveling, I picked up storm chasing during spring of 2014. I spent a few weeks in 2014 traveling and photographing storms, but without a solid goal or understanding of the concepts of photography. My interest in timelapse photography of storms stemmed from seeing Nicolaus Wegner's "Stormscapes" videos around this time.

This year, I set out with much better equipment, more ambition, and a solid goal - to produce the timelapse compilation that became "Edge of Stability". Using the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center outlooks (SPC), I was able to see generally where and what type of severe weather would occur during the next few days. Twitter also became a huge part of my decision making process - following the posts of more experienced storm chasers and meteorologists. I drove over 600+ miles some days in order to reach areas where the environment would be favorable for severe weather. Typically the most intense weather occurs during late afternoon and into the night, so there wasn't a whole lot of sleeping - but it was worth it.

I ended up traveling through California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and into Manitoba, Canada. Most of this time was spent car-camping in my truck (I had removed the back seat and built a sleeping platform and storage compartments), but got a hotel room every few days. During breaks where there was less severe weather, I got a chance to photograph the Milky Way and other landscape scenes. I even, on a whim, decided to drive into Canada and attempt to see the Northern Lights for the first time. This paid off - and I was incredibly lucky to see brilliant displays of the Aurora Borealis both nights I spent in Manitoba. It even made getting detained by Canadian immigration officials for a couple hours and searched at the border worth it!

By the end of my journey, I ended up with about 70,000 individual high resolution photos. Having recorded up to 8,000 photos per day, I had to buy two 4GB external hard drives just to keep up. I also had to edit and save each day's clips as I went. I used Adobe Creative Cloud's Lightroom and Premiere Pro - but even these phenomenal programs would take hours to compile timelapse sequences only seconds long. I set up my Dell XPS 15 laptop to run off my vehicle's electrical system, and was able to let it work for the hours each day I spent driving.

Once I arrived back home in California, I began the long process of sorting, categorizing, and ranking my sequences. I had SO many photos that probably less than 30% of my content made it into "Edge of Stability". In fact, to this day I still haven't even converted about 20% of the photos into timelapse videos.

As far as the technical parts of how I produced the video: I used two Canon 6D's paired with a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8, Tamron 70-300 f/4.5-5.6, and a Canon 50mm f/1.8. I used a Vanguard Alta Pro 263AGH Tripod with a GH-100 Grip Head, and it worked great. When doing two sequences at once, the second camera sat on a cheaper and more frustrating tripod I picked up from Costco a year earlier. I installed "Magic Lantern" software onto my cameras which allowed me to use an internal intervalometer and not have to purchase two extra external devices. "Magic Lantern", a sort of software hack on the camera, came with a number of issues - but it got the job done and did it well. The timelapse sequences were recorded with a RAW photo taken between every 2 seconds to every minute. The type of shot, movement in what I was photographing, and lightning conditions all played into this. Rapidly evolving supercell thunderstorms were recorded every 2 seconds in order to capture as much detail as possible and to create the longest clip in the shortest amount of time. On the other hand, I would leave my cameras on a mountainside exposing the Milky Way all night long, and might set the cameras to record a 20 second exposure every minute until the batteries ran out.

I had to return to reality eventually, but I plan to make it back out to capture more images as soon as possible! All of the compliments I've received have been very motivational, and I plan to continue to improve and challenge myself!

Thanks for watching! :)

www.negativetilt.com
www.facebook.com/negativetilt
Twitter & Instagram: @negative_tilt

Email: Jeff@negativetilt.com (Please contact for commercial/broadcast licensing)

Amazing Perspective

It is rare that an image splits so perfectly into two haves that you think it is actually two images. And then your mind resets and you realize that the sky is actually water …

Such a great capture …

Evernote – Once the most useful free tool on the planet … just a little less useful today …

Evernote has discovered what most of the industry has discovered – that subscription models can make you rich. They have always had a subscription premium option, but I am a light user and so have never needed to pay for premium.

And they no doubt realized that this was limiting their income because the free product was simply too good.

Now, the usual response would be to beef up the premium offering and price it just right. But Evernote came up with the unique idea of an intermediate plus price point at just a little too high a price and then stole one of the most useful features from the free version to make that version saleable.

Here is what happens now when you send a copy of an email to your Evernote inbox:

That is just harsh …

p.s. Note that it suggests that I have reached my daily limit. That’s bollucks, since it is the first email I have sent to Evernote today. The 5 emails limit is now a lifetime limit until you upgrade. There was never a limit before.

Published in the Citizen again this week … Ourtown section

Lots to do in the city this summer …

Grab a copy of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper this Thursday and get the whole scoop for the coming week in the Ourtown section.

Thanks go to Robbi Hay, the editor of Ourtown, for using one of my images once again.

Lightroom People Search – An embarrassment …

Lightroom has always been a pretty frustrating application. A truly excellent concept with truly awful performance. Just getting into the ballpark of tolerable requires that you use a very fast multi-core processor and have multiple fast disks and tons of RAM. Anything less and you will want to commit hara kiri on a daily basis.

But even with a monster machine, turning on people mode will make you want to throw things at your screen. Seriously.

The user interface acts like it was written by high school students. I cannot detect any separation of GUI and worker threads and the areas of sensitivity and responsiveness make no sense whatsoever.

Even when performing it a folder at a time, the performance never gets any better.

You can’t put it in the background to run against the whole library because even with its thread priority lowered it will cause your mouse to jerk from place to place quite often. It is able, even at low priority, to make your system feel like it is from 1988.

I just wish that they would do a little professional coding and keep the user interface responsive with notifications and status attached to each face so that you can know what the system thinks is happening at any given moment. With the proper use of low priority threads, this thing could be absolutely amazing chugging away while you work on other stuff.

Who writes code like that?

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And if you want to see how many people agree … take a look: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7475201#7475201

Amazing Grace

I was blown away by the incredible rendition of this song by the leader of the free world …

If a great man and gifted speaker like President Obama cannot tame the inherent insanity of their governmental processes and of their right wing, then what hope is there for the USA?

On the other hand, I cannot imagine for a moment that our current Prime Minister could inspire more than a few right wing nuts with any speech of any kind at any venue these days … so at least they have that.

Mikey the Blind Rescue Pug

Great story here …

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/mikey-blind-pug_n_7593700.html

I was struck that all Pugs do this pretty much the same … and really often

That’s Sabrina Johnson with Mikey. She is the district judge for Inkster, Michigan and obviously a very kind person.

Published! Ottawa Citizen Ourtown Section

As always, I recommend you look for it on the news stands on Thursday of this week – 18 June 2015. The section is filled with tons of things to do … you get a wee taste of it here:

This image was shot at a relative’s house some years ago … one of the cutest faces you will ever see. Published with the permission of the parents.

Inateck USB 3.0 Tool-Free FE2005S Hard Disk Drive Enclosure

Introduction

This is a brief review of the Inateck tool less disk enclosure. The enclosure was sent to me for review purposes and I wanted to try it with a standard laptop hard drive at 7200 rpm.

It spends its time installed in my ultra bay extension adapter …

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Ergonomics and Installation

Nicely packaged of course. Everything is plastic wrapped for a very professional look.

Installation was trickier than I had expected. The top half of the box slides open, but the little manual does not tell you to slide the lock switch open first, so I ended up forcing it. It looked like a power switch, being right next to the LED, and was not obviously a lock.

Once that got sorted, I plugged the drive into the box and closed it, sliding the lock back into place.

I then tried plugging in the USB 3 with its proprietary shaped plug. It would not go, so I opened the box again and pulled the drive, then slid the USB 3 into the box while open. It felt clunky but it went in and after that it was smoother.

So once I got the drive in the box I plugged the box into my laptop USB 3 port and it came up instantly.

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Performance Comparison

The performance in the laptop ultra bay port is far from earth-shattering:

Enter the Inateck tool free hard drive enclosure:

The enclosure on a USB 3 port is also not much to write home about, but it did outperform the ultra bay across the board, if only by a hair … maybe 1%.

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Now to compare against my more powerful home machine …

First on a USB 3 hub …

About the same … I’m a tad surprised.

How about on a full USB 2 hub?

Wow … that’s pretty brutal, but then it is a USB 3 device and so should be expected to slow down on a USB 2 port. By the way, it took a long time to connect on USB 2. But it did and ran fine after that.

So how much faster is the same kind of drive as C: with a direct connection to the SATA controller?

Looks like about 30% faster to read, but somewhat slower to write. Color me really surprised …

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What about comparing against a serious disk? A 3.5” Caviar Black 3 TB 7200rpm?

Faster again to read, but again slower to write in some cases. Interestingly, this disk writes faster than it reads across the board. More surprises it seems.

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Conclusion Performance is very good and while the difference between this drive and a main drive is there, it is not all that significant. All in all, this is an inexpensive solution that is light weight and looks great.

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And just for fun … my SSD C drive on the main machine …

It’s not even a fast SSD but still crushes all the regular drives …

Ornamental Gardens

We have a pretty nice ornamental garden as part of the experimental farm that cuts through the city, and I like to visit now and again to see what is there to shoot. I went this last evening and shot with the sun already casting very long shadows. I shot this series exclusively with the G6 and the 100-300 and I must say that these two work amazingly well together, even as the light faded.

Here is the link to the whole series in my gallery:
http://letkeman.net/Gallery/Nature/flowers/Ornamental-Gardens-4-June-2015

I was able to block the sun in many cases in order to get images without nasty shadows, but some of the earlier images did have full sun. This is an example of a beautiful Iris shot with tons of light …

Nice tones I think. I processed the series pretty hard with lots of shadow around the flowers, and I am still having some problems with ProPhoto color space being boiled down to sRGB color space for the web, as these images seem to suffer from strange posterization in shadows. It’s perplexing and I need to figure it out … but for now I will live with it.

Here’s a pretty Iris that I shot in the shadow of my body. Works great …

There were other flowers that you can look at in the gallery, but the real show was the myriad Peonies that are everywhere in that garden. The variety is incredible.

Of course, pink is everywhere …

And so is white …

Shades of red and purple …

As I left, the sunset was looking pretty good … of course, this is accentuated a bit …

There are 122 images in the gallery … have a look:
http://letkeman.net/Gallery/Nature/flowers/Ornamental-Gardens-4-June-2015