The pictures in this post were taken during the summer when I was visiting my family in Hungary. This was the second time I visited the “Fűvészkert”, an arboretum in Budapest. It’s a wonderful place for plant and flower lovers, with or without a camera. I spent a few hours walking around and capturing flowers with three of my Lensbaby lenses: the Twist 60, the Sol 45 and the Velvet 56. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos of the flora of the arboretum as much as I enjoyed seeing them in live.
Twist 60
Welcome to my August 1st Lensbaby Blog Circle post, which is a brief insight into the first few days of our annual family visit to Hungary.
My daughter and I arrived after midnight last Thursday, after a long, 26 hour trip (due to flight problems). Late morning on Friday we immediately headed to my brother’s weekend home by Lake Balaton. I took some pictures in his very nicely kept yard (his son was a great helper), at the lake in the morning, and some flowers during my walk. On Saturday we visited an adventure park near the city of Veszprém, where the cousins had a ton of fun playing together in a pond. We also visited another adventure park in Budapest on Tuesday. The following pictures were all taken with Lensbaby lenses, mostly with the Twist 60 and the Double glass. I hope you’ll enjoy a bit of European photography from me.
(Double glass)
Since I own both a crop sensor (Nikon d7000) and a full frame (Nikon d750) camera, per request of a fellow Lensbaby lens user I took some comparison photos. She wanted to decide if she should get the Twist or the Burnside lens for her camera. I didn’t do post-processing on the images to show how the lenses capture the subject naturally.
1. In the first comparison I photographed the subject from the closest distance possible, which was about 19 inches.
Full Frame at F2.5
Crop Sensor at 2.5
Welcome to my July 1st Lensbaby Blog Circle post, in which I’d like to invite you to take a short walk with me in San Antonio, Texas. My family was taking a five-day vacation in Austin and San Antonio, and I grabbed my Lensbaby Twist 60 to capture some great moments while walking on the famous San Antonio River Walk (Paseo del Rio), which is the largest urban ecosystem in the United States. The whole walk is 15 miles long, but we mainly just visited the downtown area. You can walk by the river, enjoy a lunch or dinner in one of the many restaurants, visit small gift shops, or take a guided tour on an electric barge. We walked around the downtown area twice; once in late afternoon then after sunset. The vibe was different, but we noticed that even at night the area is very family friendly.
I really enjoyed capturing the colorful barges, and I even took pictures of people, which is very unusual for me. We saw pretty flowers, some wildlife, and at night we walked up to San Fernando Cathedral where we watched a laser light show projected to the cathedral’s wall for a few minutes. Without further ado, enjoy a brief tour of the San Antonio River Walk.
In the past few weeks I haven’t used my Lensbaby lenses as much, because I attended nature programs in groups, where an automatic lens was more useful. If I wanted to take pictures while hiking, I had to do it fast and not hold up the group.
Last week I spent a brief time at a pretty place in San Clemente, California. Casa Romantica is a beautiful venue for weddings and parties, and it is open to the public when no events are going on.
I walked around the garden three times, using a different lens each time while approaching the same subjects. I used the Sol 45, the Twist 60 and the Velvet 56. After comparing the images I chose the ones to post that I liked the most. One subject worked very well with all three lenses, I’ll save that for last. A few subjects didn’t work for me at all. So here are the winners:
The only image of the view from the gardens I liked was taken with the Twist 60. It was a dark, overcast day, but this is the lens I would use again for this view on a sunny day.
