Saturday, April 9, 2011

A Visit to Allen Gardens

Allen Gardens is the oldest botanical gardens in Toronto.  The conservatory (greenhouse) houses many plants and flowers from all over the world.  It's open everyday and is free.  A favourite place for wedding photographers, nature lovers, or any one who simply likes to go inside and take pictures.  The best thing about the garden is of course it's greenhouse.  It's a great place to go in the winter when everything is frozen.

The last time we went there was a few years ago.  Today, Dillon and I decided to visit it and I wanted to test out the Ilex 80mm f1.3 a bit more and see what kind of pictures I can get with more colours.

Let's just say that this lens was not created for beautiful bokeh, but the pictures are kind of different.  Some actually came out OK, but I won't use it for any pictures with busy backgrounds.  In fact, I probably won't be using much any more.  I hate lenses with ugly bokeh.

A word on the helicoid that this lens is attached to.  It's not one of the best made focusing helicoids.  It already has a lot of play and wobbles a little, after only a light amount of use.  It's really too bad as I planned to buy a longer one, but I will have to wait and see.

Willow? -- NEX-5 & Ilex 80mm f1.3 @ f1.3. Click to see larger.

Red flowers -- NEX-5 & Ilex 80mm f1.3. Click to see larger.

Bokeh Sample -- NEX-5 & Ilex 80mm f1.3 @ f1.3. Click to see larger.

4 comments:

  1. I especially like that first one. Beautiful lens painting.

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  2. Thanks natebarnz. The bokeh is a little weird to my taste. This one that you like is one of the few that turned out ok. The Ilex 80mm f1.3 has a very thin depth of field, which gives some distinct characteristics to the pictures.

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  3. Great "dreamy" vision. I'm curious what would be the result in portraits :)

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  4. @Olesk.pl: I have a few portraits taken with this lens, but not in this kind of light. Check my previous posts or search for a ilex.

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