Today is the Lantern Festival in China, 元宵(yuanxiao). It marks the last day of the 16 days of Lunar New Year celebration (New Year’s Eve to Jan 15th).

In some areas of China, people go see the lights on this day. I was lucky to have taken some photos at the Missouri Botanic Garden, their Special Lantern Show started right close to the recent HAS meeting.  This was July 14th, 2012.  During the day I went and shot many bees photos (coming later), during the HAS in Missouri many years ago, I made trips to the garden because there were so many flowers with bees foraging. .

Looking at my photos, most were at 1/30 to 1/40 of second in exposure. So I think I failed to borrow a tripod that night. But the photos turned out to be ok due to the D700’s low noise at high ISO. I used 500 most of the time and 800 occasionally. and F2.8 to F4. Lens was a used Nikkor 20-35 mm F2.8 lens.

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