It's been about a week since I bought my 2 new lens. The picture quality is really good, and I get to cover a wide range of focal lengths.

A few days before I got back, there were 2 massive midnight flowers in my garden, according to my aunt. These flowers only bloom at night, and dry up at sunrise. They typically grow on the edge of the leaves, and are pretty easy to spot because of their size and the length of their stalk.

I saw these flowers in full bloom last year, but at that time, I didn't have a dSLR. The photos turned out pretty decent though. And I had to wake up before sunrise to take pictures of them, before they withered. I wish I could do a time-lapse of them opening, but Helios the dSLR doesn't come with a movie function.

These pictures were taken over the past 3 days. There were 5 flower buds on one leaf, of which 1 started blooming first and shrivelled up the next morning. The other 2 only started blooming yesterday, after the rain.

The first flower - reluctant to bloom at first...

But after spraying it with some water, it opened within half an hour, and was in full bloom shortly after...

Subsequently the first flower dried up, and the other 4 began to open...

Closeup of the anthers, filaments etc of one of the flowers...

One of the many "group shots" I took of these flowers...

Unfortunately, the 4 flowers dried up this morning, and now there're 5 dried flowers hanging on the same leaf. :( Hopefully there'll be more flowers blooming soon...

On a side note...I should really make a trip to Botanic Gardens and take more macro shots with my telephoto lens...or maybe go on this photo-taking trip in spring when I get back to Melbourne? Spring flowers are really beautiful in Melbourne, especially cherry blossoms...

Hmmmmm I guess that's it for now!!! :D Thanks for viewing and do stay tuned for the next post!