Descanso Gardens

Up at 6AM for breakfast at IHOP. It’s my wife’s birthday, but we have full schedules today, so this was the birthday party and she paid!! But, last Sunday, we celebrated early with a trip to Descanso Gardens. She loves flowers, so this was the perfect day.

All shots are with a Nikon D700 and Nikon 24-120mm lens. Many people put down this lens because it is ’slow’ at f3.5 to 5.6 — and not a constant aperture. I love this lens! This is my second one, over the past nine years (dropped the first one in the Pacific Ocean). It is a ’street sweeper’ — a perfect photo journalistic lens because you can shoot wide for an establishing scene, then zoom in for a close up. In fact, as you can see, in some of the following, it is a near macro lens, as well. The majority of these were taken in aperture priority, with the lens wide open for minimum DOF. All hand-held.