Springtime!, part 3 of the Harris-Smith party, Petaluma, California

This will be the last of the Harris-Smith party posts (at least until the next Harris-Smith party, that is!). We had such a great day, and part of the reason was because of the perfect weather. It was the day before St. Patrick's day, but it must've been 80 degrees out without a cloud in the sky, and a million things in bloom. Sigh, definitely a "thank goodness for Northern California" type of day!



(not a croquet ball!)

I had a lot of fun playing with my awesome 50mm f1.4 lens. I've been enjoying opening the aperture all the way to 1.4 even during brilliantly sunny days like this to give it a crazy depth of field (just for fun - obviously you want to avoid this in situations where, for example, you actually want the whole image to be crisp!). I'm trying not to overuse this technique, but since this was all just for fun, I got a little crazy with it.

For example, the camera's autoexposure would probably have shot this at something like f16, 1/200th of a second (ISO 200). Instead, I stopped my ISO down as low as the 5D will allow (basically the equivalent of 50), opened up to f1.4 where I could (and f1.8 where necessary), and shot as high as I could - sometimes well over 1/1000th of a second! Fun and crazy tech experiment, let me know if you have questions.

Anyway, here are some beautiful blossoms, with and without busy bee:













Yes, we had a root beer tasting! As well as hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, and lots of desserts.



There was also egg-dyeing available - it was the day before St. Patrick's Day and the week before Easter.



I think she looks so pretty here, with the sunlight, the colorful eggs dyes, and her cool sweatshirt (hot, though, eh?):





What a sweet family.