Mountain Laurel II

The mountain laurel buds have begun to open, and as I promised I’m posting some images of the full flowers to show the detail of the blossoms seen up close.  This red and white variety is one of several growing on the East side of our house.  This image was taken early this morning so that the flower is still heavy with dew.  Camera settings were the usual Nikon D300 camera, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII lens at 200mm with 1.7x TC and a full set of extension tubes, and exposure settings of ISO 800, 1/5 sec at f/16, manual focus with camera mounted on a tripod.