We Shoot Tulips With Olympus Don't We?

It is that time of the year again, spring is in the air; again, tulips are in full bloom at our Wellington Botanical Garden again ;)

Turn out to be a dry and mild sunny day, after lunch we head for the garden; to admire the short lived, glorious flowers. I expect all the blooms will be gone early next week.

I took TWO Olympus with me, the 3 year old E-P2 and the 8 months old OM-D E-M5. To calm my aching knee I only have TWO Panasonic lenses, my favorite super wide zoom; the Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 7-14 mm F4.0 ASPH and the very compact Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6 zoom.

Out of the blue, Le General insisted that she wanted to shoot her own pictures!  I have to give her the E-P2 with the 7-14 lens which she hogged the whole afternoon ;)

A 45mm view of the garden taken by LB before she took over the ultra wide.

Both shot with the 7-14 lens by LB, notice the lens flare caused by the sun ray hitting the lens.

Not bad for someone who seldom take pictures!!

The colour saturation, sharpness and exposure latitude of the E-P2 / 7-14 combo was as expected. I was using the same set up when we were in Europe two years ago, the same camera and lens did not let me down!
What about my shots?

In some way I find the longer zoom lens I am using is perfect for candid and close-up, take a look :)

I was delighted how good the Lumix 45-175 handle really strong back light, there are no lens flare; colour remain saturated and contrasty!

Comparing the shots from E-P2 to E-M5, I notice how much more detail the E-M5 rendered the highlight!  Look at the shot of the white tulips among the bright red, notice the white blooms are not blow out in detail?  Kudos to the marvelous sensor in the OM-D!

 Le General busy shooting the stunning white tulips among a sea of reds :)

This was shot at 135mm (270mm eqv) f8, detail of the white tulips was not lost; exposure from the OM-D was spot on.

 Any camera will do, even an iPad :)

A smiling grandma taking a breather, even though it was a very sunny day; the air have a snappy chill to it.

 One for the album poses were all over the sunny garden ;)

Even the "I think I can fly" pose ;)

 Do you really need to bend like that to get a good shot?

 A good mixture of colour...

This very old magnolia tree is covered with flowers! Shot at f8 and 84mm (168mm Eqv) can the NZ$700.00 light weight, plastic clad zoom lens able to retain detail of the flowers?

This is a 100% of the above picture, not bad at all!

It has been an interesting afternoon photo session at the botanical garden, the 2.30pm sun was very strong and harsh; not really an ideal time to photograph the colourful tulips. Mind you, the sensors in both Olympus; especially the OM-D, handle the harsh light very well!  On hind sight, I think light at 4.30pm might be better.

Next time then  :)