Garden shots

Early morning light walking through the bush on the way to the Botanical Gardens.  It was really quite dark and I suspect you only really get the best effect when you see the image REALLY big.  It was the rays of sunlight passing through the upper canopy and the way it illuminated the ferns and palms that really caught my eye.  If you click on the image you'll see it a little larger.

Exposure was 1/5 sec, f11 and ISO 200.  Didn't take a tripod so this is a handheld shot (well I did support myself on a tree trunk) Nevertheless I think you'll agree Nikon's VR is pretty good!

I took seven shots with the intention of either merging them into an HDR image or picking what I thought was the best in the bracketed set.  As it happens I wasn't impressed with the 7 shots merged so selected the single shot closest to what I could remember and pushed this image through Photomatix Pro.  Perhaps let me know what you think.

I suppose I was quite taken with "light" today and how it changed the appearance of objects when the sun was behind, or in front of the camera.  The next two shots illustrate the different effects of shooting into the sun, or with the sun behind you.  I can recall being told to always keep the sun behind me when shooting, but I really quite like the effect of shooting into the sun.  Perhaps let me know which you prefer?

The last shots in this post are of some fern koru.  Today was glorious ... a wonderful sunny clear blue sky day and the unfolding koru on the ferns against the blue sky was just stunning ... well I thought so anyway!