Wowy! Went to my favorite nursery a couple days back and there across the greenhouse was a color that DEMANDED you focus ALL your attention that way! Upon closer examination, I knew immediately what it was: a vireya, one of those really cool tropical rhododendrons. This one was a mixture of eyesplitting orange and yellow. Needless to say, I HAD TO HAVE IT:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/tvelardi/VirSimbuSunsetCLSM.jpg

Here is the full plant:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/tvelardi/VirSimbuSunsetWH.jpg

The second shot shows the flowers a bit yellow, whereas the first shot is pretty accurate. The tag read in katakana characters “Shinpu San” which I think translates as “Simbu Sunset”, a primary cross between two lowland growing species R. lateum and R. zollerii. These are supposed to be some of the easiest vireyas to grow (the highland species have difficult reputations).

I don’t know if I can keep this guy going here, but I’m gonna try. I failed miserably in Florida with vireyas due to rot. Here I think the problem will be the long, cold winters. Guess I gotta build a greenhouse this year. No problem, but how am I going to afford to heat it!?

Enjoy,

Tom

The first photo is BEAUTIFUL!

Gorgeous. That color is awesome :clap:

They are beautiful, Tom!

thanks

Hey thats pretty cool. Great color. I can see how it caught you from across the nursery.

Beautiful, for sure. The flowers are so perfect as to almost look artificial.

Beautiful Vireya!!!

I swear the more photos of your yard I see, the more jealous I get.

Jon

That is an eye catcher!

wow !flashy lovely orange color ! :)

most excellent!!

Fantastic pictures.

Missed this!
Yeah, fantastic shots.

another fantastic one

vivid closeup with great depth of field. Do you use auto settings or are you manually setting your camera?

vivid closeup with great depth of field. Do you use auto settings or are you manually setting your camera?

Hey Ron,

I have the Canon Digital Rebel. It's default setting is called "parameter 1" which basically increases the contrast, saturation, and sharpeness "by one". I usually shoot in this mode, but honestly in most situations I haven't seen a huge difference between this mode and the standard setting. In any event, I manipulate all my shots after the fact with Photoshop anyway. The first shot is pretty true to the color of this plant. The sharpness is a result of the lens (up close shots are always nice with this camera, but wide angle shots are of poor quality) and the sensor as well. Honestly, I like this camera, but I feel like I've outgrown it. It has clear limitations, yet it is a great way to enter the digital single reflex camera world.

Tom

With an SLR, you might be able to purchase other lenses that should take care of the side angle problem. Can you set the camera on totally manual mode? That's what I like to do on my Nikon D7s, although I must admit that sometimes I like to use my smaller Nikon in "point and shoot" mode.

With an SLR, you might be able to purchase other lenses that should take care of the side angle problem. Can you set the camera on totally manual mode? That's what I like to do on my Nikon D7s, although I must admit that sometimes I like to use my smaller Nikon in "point and shoot" mode.

Hey Dot,

I was told the the issue is with the sensor at wide angles, not so much the lens. Of course all wide angle lenses produce distortion in and of themselves (particularly zoom lenses). I rarely use the full point and shoot modes and only when I'm hand holding and the conditions are really bad. I do use the aperature priority mode a lot since I like to have control over the depth of field mostly, with less concern for the shutter speed. Manual focus is a must for close ups since the darn camera has a hard time knowing what to focus on. Depending on how bad I want the shot, I bracket a full stop in both ways, sometimes more. All in all I like it, but if I'm going to start printing these shots one day, I want a better camera.

Tom

That's good to know, Tom. I seriously looked at the Canon Digital Rebel, but decided on the Nikon. With film camera, I used to have a Canon F1 with several lenses. They were excellent. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the lenses wouldn't fit on the newer Rebel. So after a bunch of research, I went with Nikon.

The bad thing about digital is that the next camera created will be much better than those currently in use. But none of us have unlimited funds, so we make do with what we have -- for a long time, until we can't stand it anymore. Right???