Merribee Gardens - Flowers With My Fujifilm

Nature Photography: Merribee Gardens, 660 Comerong Island Rd, Numbaa NSW 2540 (in December 2023)

Taken with Fujifilm X-T30ii and Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens; Edited in Lightroom

Hi Readers. Today is an exciting day because I finally announced my website on my socials! It's been a long time coming, after spending the past 6 weeks at home rebranding and cleaning up my website. As I type this, I feel a huge sense of relief because I have been craving this - long-form media. While I love Instagram I felt I needed a space to write my thoughts and musings in longer diary entries like these, instead of conforming to a short-form caption.

In this post I want to share some of my favourite Floral Photography. For my friend's birthday we planned the 2-hour road trip down south to visit the gardens and attend the Lavender Festival that runs from December to January.

For us Australians, December is the first month of Summer, so the weather is humid and all the flowers are in full bloom. The Lavender Fields are beautiful here and attracts so many bees. This is one of those times I wish I had a macro lens so I could take close-ups on the insects and flower petals. The above photo was taken with my 27mm f2 lens, and this was the closest I could get without me losing focus. I was genuinely surprised though on the crisp detail and the creamy bokeh I achieved. And luckily my Fujifilm screen responds to touch and allows me to tap the screen to focus (I activated the setting) so I could capture this quickly without trying to manually focus. I am still practicing!

For my settings I kept it simple, keeping my aperture wide open at f2.8 and adjusted my shutter speed and ISO around it. I considered this Still Life so I was comfortable with using a lower shutter speed. The day was a little overcast, which I really love shooting in because the Australian sun can be so harsh and cast the harshest shadows. This way, the clouds acts as a diffuser.

Nature Photography: Merribee Gardens, 660 Comerong Island Rd, Numbaa NSW 2540 (in December 2023)

Taken with Fujifilm X-T30ii and Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens; Edited in Lightroom

I used my trusty Reggie's Portra recipe for this set because of the warmth yet neutral base. In Lightroom I added again more warmth and some yellow in. To be honest, not much needs to be done, I usually bring up the exposure and toggle with the shadows and highlights. These days I use the 'Mask' tool in Lightroom but that will come in later blog posts.

I hope you've all been well? Tomorrow I will heading out to my 2nd Watercolour class and I am excited because it gets me out of the house. I went last week and it was so fun to sit in a brightly lit room, having the teacher guide us in creating a new painting from scratch. It's much more satisfying than sitting at home and trying to paint using a YT guide. And! I get to ask for feedback. 

Maybe I'll post some of my past watercolours when I get a chance.

I also wanted to share what my gear looks like. I have a feeling non-photographers or beginners might be interested or need to get an idea of what I am talking about. Below is an image. I love my Fujifilm, the small form factor and pancake lens makes it easy to carry around.

 Gear: Fujifilm X-T30ii and Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

I hope you enjoyed the flowers I found through Merribee Gardens. I will try and post more on it later - there was a cafe there and a gift shop! Best believe I took photos of those too. Anyways until next time, have a wonderful week my friends.

❤︎ Natalie