### Weekly Garden&Flower for 2014-08-22 ###

I really like how you 'keep your hand in', Rich. Very well done.

Steve

I may have seen a magnolia in Florida, but I don't recognize it. I live in the northeast, and have never seen one here that I'm aware of. I like the strong graphic it presents, providing photo ops in much the same way sunflowers do.

I have posted these before, but these were in there prime and offer a comparison to Minnie's past its prime example. Our petals don't turn brownish and stay on unless they experience heavy frost, then the bloom dies and falls off in a day or two but does not linger. Ours are likely a different variety. We also have a yellow one as well (saucer magnolias and not star magnolias).

Andrew

I have no idea of what are them...

1





2

I believe the second is bleeding hearts but can't see the first well enough to form an opinion.

Andrew

Lovely! Nice capture of the delicate colors. Down here we call this kind Japanese Magnolias. They are our first harbingers of spring.

Thanks, Steve. I figure, if you're only going to post one pic, it ought to be a good one. Rich

Andrew, I didn't know what it was, but a strange looking rose, I thought. Turns out it is a begonia, thanks to Alisande's identification below. It was a prize winner at The Humboldt County Fair this month. Rich

Thanks for identifying the flower for us, Alisande. I ought to be taking pix of meat ball sandwiches, because I can identify them. Rich

Hi Rich

bloom is unique and beautiful pattern

,,,Leica 14-150 is really a high quality lens

Thanks, Harri.

It is a beautiful flower. The Leica D 14-150 does make very high quality pix. 14-150 is a wonderful walkabout range.

BUT

Just after I shot that flower, the zoom ring locked up. If you shake the lens, you hear parts rattling around inside. You can slide the lens in and out by hand, but it will not focus.

I've had the Leica almost a year. I bought the most expensive used copy B&H had, at the time. I've used it extensively, and had no accidents with it. It still looks brand new.

I did some research and found that this is a design problem on some of these lenses.

If I fix it, will it happen again?

I contacted Panasonic, they said to send it in to repair. They wouldn't give me an estimate range.

So, I now have a $1,000 paperweight.

I've never had one piece of my Olympus gear fail in over 20 years, not one.

I have a Panasonic toaster oven and it works great. Rich

http://photobucket.com/dfr49_pix

Your 'luck' continues Rich! :-( Here I am checking out the local camera chain for a used Leica. Think I will stop now! That sucks and the fact Panasonic wasn't helpful in the quotation department is also unfortunate.

By a lottery ticket. You are overdue for some good luck.

Andrew

Tell you what, Andrew, Panasonic is going to pay for my loss. There were micro four thirds Panasonic lenses in my future, but that isn't all. Evidently while the 14-150 was in production, Panasonic identified and fixed the problem. I read that some folks who bought earlier lenses got them replaced with updated lenses.

Chevrolet sold me a badly designed car in 1979, The Citation. It was dangerous and many were sold. They had so many bad cars that they just quit honoring the warranties! I raised Hell and Chevrolet sent a representative here from San Francisco. I told him I'd sue. He actually laughed and told me it was folly for a little bug like me to take General Motors to court. He also told me that if they fixed mine, they'd have to fix others and that they had so many customers it was cheaper for them to lose the customers than fix the cars. I told him that people would die and he replied that people die every day. Does that sound like the General Motors of today, with their ignition switch fault information suppressed by the company for years? I have literally prevented a couple of thousand people from buying Chevrolets, since. The same for Harley Davidson and several other big companies.

Any engineering company can make a mistake, but when they dump the cost of the mistake on their customers, they shouldn't have customers.

The Japanese exploited this flaw in American business back in the 70's. I bought a new Datsun in 72. It had a wiring problem in the dash which caused the ignition to cut out for a millisecond, occasionally. Datsun, and all the Japanese auto manufacturers, had strict orders to their dealers to take care of the customer after the sale. It took months to finally find the flaw in mine. Each time I brought it in, they were polite, apologetic, and gave me a year old car off their used car lot to drive, always full of gas. All this while dealers of American cars were telling their customers that life is tough all over. For several months after the Datsun was fixed, the dealer called me several times to make sure I was satisfied.

I suppose I've been spoilt by the quality and durability of my extensive collection of Olympus gear. Whatever the case, I lived on ramen noodles for six months to get that 14-150 lens. I figured I was going to die anyway, so why not.

I'll be on the phone with Panasonic in Texas tomorrow. We shall see. Rich

Wow, the light is fading and fading fast. Glad you told us the flower is a black-eyed susan as there is no way I would have guessed. Thanks for posting, prymsnap.

Steve

Wanted to post more but I am too busy with my daughter's school and and her Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday dance classes. Friday is another thread...

Rich Z said:

I have a Panasonic toaster oven and it works great. Rich

Click to expand...

If that's the one, it's the best toaster oven I have ever owned. It's infrared, no warm up time.

I LIKE these photos of yours. 40mm? Were you right on top of those bumblebees? (At least, they look like bumblebees to me.)

Steve

Yep, Andrew, that's the magnolia tree I remember from when I was just a kid. Thanks for bringing back the memory, Andrew.

Steve