Photographic Evidence

ProfessorRoush is absolutely certain, 100% positively sure, that other avid amateur photographers/ gardeners/ astronomers/ BIRDERS have looked at the countless advertisements for those inexpensive telephoto lenses that can be attached to your phones to take perfect pictures of distant objects and wondered "do they really work?"  I'm a little eccentric, yes, but I am fully aware that I'm not uniquely unhinged and that I'm in good company in all my hobby interests.  Besides, you know as well as I do that if you pause a second at a photo of a bird on, say, Facebook, the social site will then follow up with an ad for a telephoto lens to tempt you, and if you pause again, then God Help You;  you'll be bombarded with similar ads for weeks.

My recent trip to the Quivera National Wildlife Refuge awakened a desire to have a real telephoto lens on a digital camera, to be able in a few months to reach out and photograph Sandhill cranes from across the salt marshes, but I'm just too cheap to spend multiple thousands of dollars right away on a lens for my Nikon.  So, I got to thinking about these little iPhone lenses and soon purchased one:  this one.   The $72 package contained the lens, iPhone mount, lens cap, and a little light tripod.

In due time, it came in and I began exploring what it can do.  The actual 30X lens is heavy and feels well-made, and the mount lets you switch from vertical to horizontal format without detaching the camera.  Surprisingly, if you know a little photography and have a good tripod, the pictures from this thing are not half-bad.  There is a bit of a learning curve, and it is imperative that your iPhone camera is set at 2X or you get a "vignette" photo, but the images are passable for the cost. 

This house finch photo was taken during my learning phase last weekend through the closed kitchen window and I took all the other  photos on the page with the camera and phone on a tripod out the window within a 5 minute timespan yesterday evening.  I was excited when the red-bellied woodpecker made an appearance.  The photo below, taken without the lens through the window and with the iPhone camera set at "1X" gives you an idea of the power of the lens.   I've circled the distant garden bench in red and the near feeder and red rose ('Hope for Humanity") in white.  The yellow thistle feeder is the small one to the right of the red rose.

So, the APEXEL lens is a decent tool and a cheap tool at that, and I got what I hoped for and expected;  a chance to capture reasonable photos of some distant wildlife up close and personal.   I'm satisfied, yes, but I also now know, with certainty, absolutely 100% certainty, that I'll use this lens this fall, be mildly satisfied and yet mildly dissatisfied, and likely, by spring, I'll be the owner of a massive and expensive telephoto lens for my Nikon D3300 digital camera.  

Maybe, however, I'll try to grab a few photos of the next full moon first.  This garden bench is about the same apparent width at that distance.

Hunter Tribute

ProfessorRoush is trying his best this year to bring Garden Musings back to its focus on my first love (beyond, of course, the beautiful Mrs. ProfessorRoush!); roses.   In that spirit, he has compiled a number of comments, thoughts and photos from the just-finished first flush of blooms, and would like to start by updating my assessment of a previously-discussed rose; the Hybrid Rugosa 'Hunter'.

My specimen of 'Hunter', planted in 1999 in my front landscape bed, seemed to peak during the 2012 season.   As I recall, its decline started after damage by an ice storm in 2015, and, surrounded by a bright red Monarda and burgundy Knautia macedonia, it struggled to compete, lingered and seemed weaker each season, and finally perished in 2017 or 2018.  Although I'm not sure if competition, poor sunlight, or old age contributed the most to 'Hunter's loss (or all three, equally) I can state with some confidence that the rose never showed any signs of Rose Rosette Disease and it remained only minimally affected by blackspot.  

I'll spare you the over-enthusiastic attempt at a poetic tribute this time, but  I missed 'Hunter' enough that I replanted a small band in 2022, this time in a more southern exposure, protected from the north winter winds by the house and near my bedroom window where I would see it more often, although the new site is also subject to more severe crosswinds and the ground is more dry in that area.  

Once again, the second coming of 'Hunter' in its now third season has grown into a spectacle, as you can see in these first 4 photos.   These were taken during first bloom cycle of 'Hunter'-2, around the 2nd week of May, when it opened every bud and petal all at once, a mass of "almost crimson", and became a show-stopper at the end of my back patio.   At 2.5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, it seems to be reaching full adulthood and is enjoying the current spot.  It shows absolutely no disease and had no winter dieback these past two winters.  

And now, 5 weeks later, it appears to be heading into another bloom cycle, slightly less flamboyant on its own, but this time accompanied not by 'John Cabot' and 'Konigin von Danemark' behind it, but by the daylilies 'Bubblegum Delicious' (left) and a yellow-green spider daylily whose name I've lost to history.  'Hunter' has also sprouted a couple of vigorous new canes that are reaching higher.  I can't wait to see what it does next!

(Non sequitur; has anyone else noticed that the iPhone 16 seems to have better representation of the reds than previous iPhones and digital cameras?  I'm much happier with the red tones of digital pictures these days!)