5N & 55-210mm - Seven in the Butterfly Garden

I didn't have as much chance to get out and shoot this weekend due to rainy weather. Along with a very brief stop in the wetlands with my A580, I also briefly stopped by a beachside park on my way back from the beach with friends - I had brought the NEX-5N and 55-210mm (with EVF) along just in case something interested me. A brief bit of sunlight between the closing clouds was peeking through, and I was parked just across from Gumbo Limbo park which has a butterfly garden. So I walked over to try a few garden and bug shots.

Here's a beautiful and vivid flower:



A brown anole lizard hanging out on one of the tree limbs in the garden - extending his neck flap to show off:



A rusty orange butterfly gathering some pollen:



Moving on to another flower:



An impressive (or scary) looking spider rolling up its catch in silk to eat later. For this one, the spider's belly was facing out towards me, with his back/topside facing in to the tree - to get this shot from the top side, I had to stick the camera into the tree branches he was strung up to, holding it out at arm's length, and using the tilt screen tilted all the way down towards me to compose the shot:



You can see the sunlight has already left us by now...I had been getting away with ISO100, and for the spider I had to pop up to ISO800. The next two required ISO400...

Another anole lizard hanging out:



A zebrawing butterfly:



And the light was fading, turning grey, and thunder was starting to turn from gentle rumble to sharp crack...it was time to call it a day!

Comments, questions, or critique welcome as always.

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

the 55-210 is lookin more and more tempting as the days go by. looks at bank account

thanks for the share @zackiedawg.

very cool shots as usual zdawg. what a photogenic area you're in - just slightly better than this nv desert. actually a LOT better! thanks for the look.

I just ordered one on ebay.... are those just crops or were you using a
macro filter of some sort?
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http://flickrhivemind.net/User/hodad66

Thanks Anak - it's a good purchase for sure - hard to match or beat for the money!

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

These are mostly shot at 210mm - no macro filters or lenses. Some are cropped a bit, others just resized...all shot JPG, out of camera with no processing. Shot in Vivid, at Sat -1, Con 0, Sharp -1.

Many thanks.

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

Thank you Jack. Actually I miss the desert - it's been almost 2 decades since I lived out west, and though very different and a little more brown in color, it's still such a beautiful and stark place to visit. And some deserts can have some amazing colors during the certain seasons - I loved Joshua Tree, Saguaro, Bosque, and Moab, among many others out there, and the colors could be pretty amazing!

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

Dear Zackidawg - No less then amazing!- thanks a lot for sharing!
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Uri Ben

Fantastic job Justin! Beautifully rendered with great colors!
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FlickR Photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46756347@N08/

Excellent shots and work Zack. Also enjoy reading your posts BTW, very interesting. Sounds like the weather down here lately . Nice sharp details and gorgeous colours, great to view.

All the best up there Zack, stay dry

Danny.
...........................
m4/3 macro
http://www.macrophotos.com/g2macro

m4/3 feathered flying gadgets
http://www.macrophotos.com/avian/avian.html

Worry about the image that comes out of the box, rather than the box itself.

these photos are very nice, this lens is on my wish list ..

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Freddytto Robles

Sony Nex5n 16mm/ 18-55mm/ Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm 1.7/ Vivitar Macro Zoom 28-210mm 1:3.5-5.6
http://freddytto-nex5n.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddy_007/

Thank you Uri.

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

--
Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

I hope you get a hold of one Freddy - they're solid lenses and my favorite of the NEX line of lenses so far.

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

Thank you!

The rain part we probably share for a chunk of the year, though you get a lot colder than we do. We actually just came off the warmest and driest winter we've ever had - we had only 3 days that had low temperatures below 50F, the entire winter. And we broke a dozen or two all-time daily temp records for winter months, with several days in the 90s. Though Florida is known as a warm place, we typically get 3-4 weeks worth of temps that touch into the 40s and occasionally the 30s, and days usually don't exceed 75...so even for us, this was very unusual. And dry - we only just started getting the rain the past 2 weeks - we were nearly bone-dry for a few months there, also very unusual for a semi-tropical place.

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Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg