No one can continuously budding and flowering, Ray. Ask any woman. Tell you even more, you're either budding or flowering. hahahaha.

Ray: Hi VZ.
I acquired two plants, so they can set up a roster, with one budding while the other is flowering, and vice versa...that should give me continuous gratification.

The plants are neither male nor female...they are just plants, and their flowers contain both male and female sex organs...so I am a bit unclear of the point you are making about women.

LOL at Viktor! BUT since flowers are not women, you may have much more success with them (which is not to indicate you haven't in the past, BTW)!

If you tend to this lovely plant as well as you tend to your photography, Ray, this will give you much happiness over time! I especially love your crop.

Ray: Thanks, Ginnie.
It is a small balcony, and there is not much space for plants as we also use the balcony for drying clothes. However, it is great to have them looking in at me all the time I am working in the living-room. I am sure I will get my money's worth of pleasure from them.

Ray, I think you will be very happy with these tenants...and I don't care what others say about budding and flowering, you do it your way and it all will come to an happy ending.
Love the colours, macro, DOF and the way you cropped this picture.
Enjoy your view at the balcony!!

Ray: Thank you, Astrid.
I am enjoying these plants very much, and will probably point the camera at them a few more times.

Just remember to give them some water and the plants will continue budding and flowering. That's why plants are different from women, they can bud and flower at the same time.

Great picture. I have bought myself a macro lens recently. Took some pictures of flowers roughly like these. I have tried all kinds of field depths, but getting the pollen apparatus into focus is very difficult. Any thoughts on the subject?

Ray: Ok...I guess plants are different from goldfish, too!

This is, I think, the first image I have posted that I shot with the 100mm F2.8 macro lens, even though I bought the lens the same day I bought the dSLR. I have worked with it on numerous occasions, but generally prefer the result I get from my 70-200mm F4 L IS lens. I have a feeling that is because I don't like to use a tripod.

Also, I presently have a preference for shallow DoF, which means I usually get either the pollen bits in focus, or the petals in focus...but not both. Even though the Canon autofocus feature seems to work well on my lenses, I usually prefer to manually focus close-up shots of flowers.

Having said all that...my only advice is "keep trying".

Actually...Nig is a bit of a whizz with close-ups of flowers...perhaps you could bleed some useful information off him.

They seem to be diong just that. What's with the female comparisons today?

Ray: I don't understand all this back-thread about women.

My post today is about pretty flowers on my balcony.

Love the colour Ray and the shot is awesome. I went to our local garden centre at the weekend taking pictures.
Don't know why us women are getting the inuendo's today.

Ray: Thanks, Tracy. The flowers are pretty.
I didn't acquire any women [recently, anyway]...there are no women living in pots on my balcony. [grin]

Cheap plants but so beautiful Ray! Superb composition. I love the colours.

Ray: They are beautiful, Richard.
One plant has red flowers with gold highlights, and the other has gold flowers with red highlights.

Lught and colour are splendid ! beautiful ! I hope you'll enjoy this plant long enough

Ray: Thank you, Jendayee. I am looking forward to a long relationship with it.

Light and colour are splendid ! beautiful shot ! I hope you'll enjoy this plant long enough

Ray: Thank you, again. [grin]

Excellent buy, the colours are ace. The only criticism is the background, its a bit busy and bright(white bits) but you probably knew i would say that

Ray: Until you mentioned it, I had not noticed, Nig. It would be easy to repair, too.
Thanks for pointing this out.

Lovely colors. I can see why they followed you home The DOF seems a little out of whack, but who cares with such good-looking flowers!

Ray: Could be DoF, Martin, or perhaps that I played with softening the focus a little to give it a bit of a "liquid" appearance.

My goodness, they'd gladden anybody's heart. They're gorgeous flowers

Ray: They are pretty, and cheap...cut flowers are cheap in Thailand, too...long-stem roses cost about 5 cents each.

Nice twins

Ray: They are lovely folks..."pretty as a picture".