5.07.2016

My first walk through Acton Arboretum

As suggested by a high school friend whose home abuts this beautiful 65 acre public resource in the town of Action, Massachusetts, I spend a couple of hours roaming around last weekend with my close up photography tools and a fold up stool.

I stuck to the wildflower garden area. The main walkways in the wildflower garden were paved about 3' wide and there were also a few dirt path short cuts. The access for wheel chairs and baby carriages was excellent.  It was great to see so many people enjoying the nice weather.

All of the images below were taken with an Olympus E-M1 and Panasonic 14-140 "travel zoom". I shot with the lens wide open at F3.5 to F5.6 depending on the focal length.  I bought this lens in December and love it, though I have not reported on it here on my blog yet.  My sense it that it is plenty sharp enough, though not as sharp over common focal lengths as the very nice Olympus 12-40mm F2.8.  And of course it is not as fast at the 12-40. But it is certainly quite versatile and has great close up capabilities as you can see below. It provides basically a 1:3 equivalent macro.  That's generally quite adequate for flowers. However, for the mosquito image I snapped onto the end of the lens a Raynox 150 two piece acromatic filter so as to acquire a 1:1 macro.

Any cropping was just to enhance the composition. I have no complaints about sharpness of this lens for close up work.

Thank you Bruce Carley for helping with the identifications.

Wood Poppy Flowers

White Trillium

Spring Beauty

Squirrel Corn

Fern Unfolding

Red Trillium

Wood Poppy

Double-Flowered Bloodroot

Fuzzy antennae = male mosquito

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