Balloon Flower Stigma... floating above rain water... Summer, 2010

This is for Ginnie... along with a bit of a story. Earlier this month, I posted an image that shows an entire Balloon Flower blossom. And Ginnie left a comment about knowing who to come to if she needed help learning how to use her macro lens... so this is for her.

When the flowers turn their faces up, their "bells" catch water when it rains. I snapped this image after heavy overnight rains using extension tubes along with my macro lens. I think I used the 36mm Kenko extension tube with my Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens on a Nikon D90 body for this shot. ((I really MUST start taking notes... the other possibility would have been with the 12mm AND 20mm Kenko extension tubes together instead of the 36mm tube.) Using extension tubes allows for really tight focus on a very little bit of the field of view... leaving the rest as a dreamy wash of color. The stigma is about 1 cm (3/8 inch) in diameter.

Oh... before I forget... Ginnie is someone I'm getting to know through her marvelous blog... you should check it out!

Fifth of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

As I've been typing the titles for these images, I cannot help but think of Star Trek: Voyager and Seven of Nine (the Borg character played by Jeri Ryan). (OK ... so I like sci-fi on television... but I like to read sci-fi too!)

Anyway, this imge, Tiny dancer..., is of a hoverfly on a balloon flower petal and is the last of the images in my winning first round portfolio in the contest described in an earlier post.

Platycodon grandiflorus is still blooming in mid-October, 2010

I love everything about these flowers EXCEPT for the need to deadhead them if you don't want them to overtake the entire garden! They spread everywhere because I'm lazy about trimming the spent blossoms before they have gone to seed. Common names for this member of the Campanulaceae family include Balloon Flower, Chinese Bellflower and Japanese Bellflower.

If one DOES remember to cut them back once in awhile, they will continue to bloom into October and some of mine were blooming in the first week of November!

Buzzzzzz.... Busy Bees in Mahonia... March 16, 2010

One of the earliest signs of spring in my garden is the bees going after the pollen in the Mahonia blossoms... this plant is so amazing... it has something of beauty to look at year-round and also provides the pollen gatherers with LOTS to go after. My only problem is that I'm really afraid of bees so fear getting close enough to get really great shots with my macro lens! Maybe I should try my 70-300mm zoom on a tripod since that would put me further back. The other issue with capturing these busy bees is that spring seems to wake them up quite nicely and they are REALLY moving around a LOT which also makes for difficulty capturing their images on camera.

Busy beetle type bug... not sure what he is...

But he clearly has been eating away at my daisy mum leaves as evidenced by the holes on every flower he has already visited... here he is making a fresh hole in an otherwise perfect flower... dining!

White Balloon Flower... comparing Macro lens with Extension + Standard...

Trying to get the hang of using extension tubes... this composite is a comparison of using an extension tube with my 70-300mm lens vs. my 105mm macro lens... both are nice... I think. :-) (ran out of time to post before leaving town and am thus posting from Sydney, Australia...)

White, white, white... Balloon Flower with Bokeh!

Still working out how to use extension tubes... this was taken with the middle one of three Kenko tubes and my 70-300mm zoom on my Nikon D90. Don't know if I'll have a chance to post tomorrow or not... packing then off to Australia and New Zealand. Check my vacation blog if you want to follow the trip.