Every year, towards the end of winter, the NY Botanical Gardens holds the Orchid Show- a haven of beauty when the trees are as barren as they get. You walk in the doors and you are transported to a new season where colors abound in great variety.  It is a most refreshing change of pace to winter. This year, we went armed with my new camera and set off to explore it's capabilities.

   It's high ISO changes the way I approach my photography. By setting the camera to Auto ISO with a maximum of 10,000 means that it becomes a third dimension in a world that was previously just two: f-stop and shutter speed. It is now possible to use ISO in determining the depth of field. I can set the aperture to f-32 (or higher) and know that the camera will adjust the ISO so that I can shoot with a minimum shutter speed at 1/100th of a second and I will have a greater range of depth in focus. Equally, I can open the aperture all the way to f-2  to achieve a very shallow focusing range.

   The first 5 pairs of images below show both types of depth of field side by side and the final 3 images display a deep depth of focus on extreme close-ups because of the ability to go with a high ISO.