The ancient buds

It has been a while since I mentioned the new lens my brother got (here). Time for another set of shots. Not so random, as I knew what I wanted and wanted to see what the new toy could do with it.

There was this Magnolia tree in a garden that was about to bloom. But before that, the dozens of extremely big (if you are familiar with the tree, you know how giant the flowers are) flower buds were just waiting to open. Amazing shape with pink blushed petals.

Yep... that's what I want!





I started to shoot against the light. With the afternoon sun and more buds and shadows in the background, it turned out pretty nice. I was hoping for more bokeh, but this is not a lens for that. Instead, I got extremely sharp and smooth images. There is hardly any processing here; there was no need.

Impressive!

Here is a fun fact about how old Magnolias are:

Magnolia is an ancient genus that appeared before bees evolved. They are theorized to have evolved to encourage pollination by beetles instead. Fossilized specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and fossils of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae date to 95 million years ago.
_source

Few more shots in with sun on the buds. I could easy crop it so much that they would look like macro shots. That's how good the lens is!
But not this time. I like the soft bokeh here and the light colours in the back.





And yes, I did come back later to shoot the flowers too. But not with this lens anymore.





And then the darkness came... :p