Posts in Category: flowers
Sunflowering Bumblebee
I posted a shot yesterday on my Facebook and Google+ accounts from this series. I went out yesterday afternoon to cover my bicycle as a storm was about to hit us and found the newly blossomed Sunflowers by the back deck full of Bumblebees. Back in for the camera!
I am loving the macro ability of the Sony HX400V. I can get to 6cm at 85mm equivalent and to 3cm at 50mm equivalent. That makes for some very effective macros! This shot is at about 75mm equivalent. It gave me enough distance to work the Bee and the scale I wanted. 🙂 The Sony also makes Program shift just about as easy as it can be. There is a control wheel under your thumb which, in Program, controls the shift. That allows me to fine tune the aperture for depth of field in my macros and landscapes.
ISO 80 @ 1/250th @ f4. Processed in Handy Photo on my tablet.
Northern Blazing Star
It is August on the Kennebunk Plains (it is August everywhere of course) and August on the sand plains means Blazing Star. This endangered member of the aster family has a stronghold on the Kennebunk Plains and I always feel privileged to live as close as I do. I photograph the bloom every year. As usual, I will be traveling at the height of the season, so I went out to the plains yesterday to see if I could catch the early bloom. And indeed a few pioneer plants were showing full color. And such color!
Sony HX400V. 85mm equivalent field of view. Macro. ISO 80 @ 1/800th @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Beach Heather
For some reason I have found Beach Heather very difficult to photograph. It is a scraggly plant at the best of times, attractive from the near distance as a purple haze at the edge of the dunes and marsh…an effect that is next to impossible to capture…or attractive very close up for its tiny flowers and lovely color…which can also be very hard to photograph since the slender stems keep the plant moving in the most gentle breeze. And between those extremes it has little to recommend it. Scraggle at the sandy edges. 🙂
This shot with its one sharp blossom surrounded by a net of unfocused color is as close as I have come. If you are not familiar with Heather, that flower is truly tiny…less than a centimeter across. Sony HX400V. 85mm equivalent macro. ISO 80 @ 1/400th @ f4. Superior Auto. Processed in Handy Photo on my tablet.
Nasturtium: Happy Sunday!
Just walking around the yard with a new camera I could not resist this fresh Nasturtium with its amazing internal architecture and the two drops of water left from the rain of the night before. And the color of course.
Sony HX400V. 60mm macro equivalent. ISO 80 @ 1/100th @ f3.5. Superior Auto. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: I am playing with a new camera. I was about to spend $1500 on two lenses, either one of which would have been more expensive than any single photographic implement I have ever bought before, and which would have brought my field kit to two bodies and three lenses…three bodies and three lenses for maximum flexibility. It is all the most compact gear I could find: what they are calling mirror-less compact system cameras, but it was still approaching 15 pounds of equipment in at least two camera bags. And I thought: “Whoa! This is just not who I am!” I love photography, but honestly, for what I do…mostly blogging and posting on Facebook and Google+…15 pounds and $2500 worth of gear is simply way more than I need (or want to carry on a regular basis). And then too, I think of myself as an evangelist for wildlife and nature, and wildlife and nature photography…I would like to see lots more people learning to celebrate the wonder of God’s creation with a camera in hand…and that kind of equipment is a barrier for many of the people who could most benefit from a close look at nature. It becomes too easy for others to say, “Yeah, of course your pics are great. You got all that expensive stuff!” Or, perhaps, “Me, I am not even going to try if I have to spend that much, and carry all that stuff.” I do want to be the everyman’s (and everywoman’s) champion of wildlife and nature photography. It is my niche, and honestly, I had fallen out of it. 🙂
So I canceled the order for the two lenses (though they are undoubtedly the best lenses I have ever used), and went back to using my Canon SX50HS superzoom…just to see if I could still enjoy it after my months in the “real camera” camp. And I found that I could. I have always said the best camera to have is the one you have with you when you see the picture. Still, the Canon is aging and due for an update. It lacks many of the refinements of the past two years, so I did a few day’s research, and bought another under $500 superzoom (which I actually got from Amazon Warehouse Deals for about $350). One camera, the Sony HX400V, to, hopefully, replace three bodies and three lenses. That is a lot to ask, more now that I know exactly what the larger cameras can do, and I know there will be compromises. But then I always knew there were compromises with superzooms.
I am still in the pixel peeping stage of new camera ownership…looking for the flaws in every image while I learn what the new camera can (and can’t) do. I am not certain if the Sony is the superzoom I will end up using, but I am already sure that I have refound my niche. Which is the same as saying I have returned to myself…to that person who most fully expresses my spirit, that bit of the one creative spirit the Creator has gifted me with. And this is good. I will get over peeping at pixels, and go back to simply enjoying and celebrating wonder with a camera. Like the amazing beautiful internal architecture of
nasturtiums.
Ruined Beauty
The Rose is blown and by. And yet still beautiful. A wreck of a Rose. And yet it still draws the eye and awakes the soul. Okay, so maybe that last is a bit over the top :-), but I certainly see an attraction. Form, color, texture. And a hint of nostalgia to knit it all together emotionally. This is from our yard yesterday morning after a day of thunderstorms.
Canon SX50HS. 24mm plus 1.5x Digital tel-extenter for a super-macro. ISO 100 @ 1/160th @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Obtrusive power-lines in the upper right corner retouched out using the eraser tool in Handy Photo.
Another Great Spangled Fritillery
This Fritillery had such a dark mantle that, while photographing it, I was convinced that it was another species…on mature reflection though, and after some Web research, I am pretty sure it is just another Great Spangled. As though “just” could ever describe a Great Spangled! Again this is in the meadows at Emmons Preserve, but in the upper meadow this time. There were more typical GSFs, with much lighter mantles, in the lower meadow on this day. The Knapweed is just about finished for this year…only a few blossoms left…so these might also be the last of the Great Spangled Fritilleries.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 1200mm equivalent (2x digital extender). Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Foggy Morning At Back Creek Marsh
It rained overnight yesterday and we will to heavy coastal fog. Rain was predicted to start again by 9, so I got out early to the marsh and beach to try for some atmospheric for shots. I tried HDR, and prefer the exposure effects, but the wind was blowing a gale and any shot with flowers in the foreground had too much ghosting from the motion and multiple exposures to work. I had to resort to normal exposures and post processing for HDR effect.
I have hundreds of images of this marsh and this tree, but this foggy shot with the bright flowers will be a favorite.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. ISO 100 @ 1/160th @f8. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Spotted Orange Jewelweed
According to a little Web research this morning, Orange Jewelweed is an introduced species in North America. It is also called Touch-me-not and is actually an Impatiens. It is often used as a natural cure for skin rashes and poison ivy in particular. I found these specimens growing by the small Pond at the Kennebunkport Land Conservancy headquarters at Emmons Preserve.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 50mm macro. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Swallowtail on Cone Flower. Happy Sunday!
There are Tiger Swallowtails everywhere this year. I see them in meadows feeding on Milkweed and flitting through the trees on unknown missions in the deep forest. I see them at Laudholm Farm, Emmons Preserve, Saco Heath, Old Falls Pond, the Waterboro Barrens, and the Kennebunk Plains. I have seen several in our yard, and actually photographed one on our apple blossoms. I almost thought we were going to get out of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens without seeing one, but one final turn around the Garden of the Senses and the great lawn after lunch turned up a lovely specimen feeding in a stand of purple Cone Flower.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Cropped for scale and composition.
And for the Sunday Thought: Comparatively speaking we do not have a lot of Butterflies in New England (compared say, to South Texas)…especially big showy butterflies like the Swallowtail. There are summers when a single sighting would be exciting. This year we have Swallowtails in abundance. I have no idea why, and I don’t even know how to begin to speculate. 🙂 But I am, of course, happy to see them, and I will undoubtedly photograph every one that will sit even remotely still for me. And I will give thanks. I know, year to year, on average, it is our most common big Butterfly. In fact nothing else in New England comes close to its size. So, common or not, every single one is a blessing. Even in a year of abundance, any day with a Swallowtail in it is more blessed than a day without. I have cherrios for breakfast every morning in the warm days of summer (oatmeal in the winter), but that does not mean I should forget to be thankful for cherrios any morning. A day with cherrios in it is always more blessed than a day without. And we do good to remember that. No matter how common the Swallowtails are this summer.
Yellow-jacket on Lantana
You do not see a lot of Lantana growing in Maine. It is a plant I associate with the Southwest and southern California where it is popular in Gardens for its bold color and for its attractiveness to butterflies. At the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens they had it growing in huge planters which I assume they move inside during the winter. I stopped for a macro of the flowers. The Yellow-jacket (Common Wasp) is a bonus.
Sony Alpha NEX 3N with ZEISS Touit 50mm f2.8 macro. ISO 200 @ 1/320th @ f11. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Anyone who appreciates macros would have to love this lens!