Rhododendron

A few weeks ago, I went to the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle for the first time. A lot of rhododendrons were blooming when I visited, with red, white, and pink flowers. The ones that seemed freshest were the pink ones like the Rhododendron Puralbum pictured above, so they were the ones I spent most of my time on. The red ones were showing signs of some wear and tear, so I suppose they bloomed earlier.

There was a little bit of a breeze that day, which made the closeup photography a bit challenging, since I didn't bring a flash with me. A lot of my shots ended up showing just enough motion blur to ruin them, but there were a few that worked out pretty well, like this one.

For this shot I used my 105mm f/2.8 VR micro-Nikkor lens, set atop my large Gitzo tripod. I used a Really Right Stuff macro focusing rail for precision focus.