Posts in Category: flowers
Broadleaf Arrowhead and Small Carpenter Bee
There is a tiny pond on a flat spot in the 40 foot slope between Roger’s Pond and the Mousam River…it looks like a garden pond in fact…and it is full of water plants and flowers. This is Broadleaf Arrowhead, which had come into bloom between visits. As a bonus, which I did not actually see until I was editing the image, we have a tiny Carpenter Bee of some kind…a member of the Small Carpenter Bee clan. To provide scale here, the flower is just over an inch wide. There are actually two bees. One is up under the yellow center of the flower. And as a super-bonus, there is also a really tiny aphid front and center below the yellow.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. This is a super-telephoto macro, taken at 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-converter), from about 5 feet. f6.3 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Some noise reduction applied to smooth out digital artifacts, especially in the background.
Penstimon? From the Yard, Kennebunk ME
So I woke up, at home, after 4 days in Virginia, and realized I did not have a pic for FloralFriday over on Google+. Out to the yard to see what is in bloom. This, I am pretty sure, is one of the apparently infinite Penstimons. It has been growing in our yard since we got there 17 years ago. My wife found one plant in the center of a unkempt garden plot out front, which was two the next year, and she started transplanting it around the yard. By now we have several stands of it.
For this shot I backed away from the plant about 10 feet and shot at 1240mm equivalent field of view. That is 150mm real focal length (plus 1.5x digital tel-extender) on the Canon SX40HS, and it gives a very nice bokeh, isolating the purples and the tight little green pearls of the flower spike against the mottled green of the out-of-focus flower patch behind.
Camera as above. Program with –1EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness…and auto color temperature to offset the early open shade.
Again the Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains
Northern Blazing Star is one of the endangered plants that earned the Kennebunk Plains their protected status. It is certainly a striking plant, and, of course, well worth preserving here in Maine. And worth a second post (I featured the plant on Monday).
This shot is of buds about to open. I like the pattern of closed bud, and I like the fur catching the light on the stems.
The second shot, on the other hand, is the flower full open. Note the range of subtle hues.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1 EV exposure compensation. 32mm macro equivalent, 1) f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. 2) f4.5@ 1/1250th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains
On Saturday I went back out to the Kennebunk Plains to see how the Northern Blazing Star is doing. When I was there two weeks ago there were a few early plants in bloom, and the promise of a very good year for the endangered plant.
And it is a good year by all appearances. The stands are healthy, blossoms are plentiful. I have no way of judging whether the plants are spreading, but the stands that are there seem denser this year, and I am going to take that as a good sign. I suspect this sand plains habitat was once more extensive in New England and Maine, when wildfire was not as controlled, and that the endangered status is as much for the habitat itself as for the Blazing Star that grows there.
The first shot here is an extreme telephoto macro, using the full zoom on the Canon SX40HS plus the 2x digital tel-converter function for the equivalent field of view of a 1680mm lens on a full frame DSLR. The depth of field, however, is that of a 150mm lens. It produces an interesting macro effect. f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 125. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
2) about 170mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. 3) 840mm equivalent. f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. 4) 24mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Boneset Grazing
This is actually Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), which I perhaps incorrectly identified earlier in the week as Ironweed. I find pictures of this same flower with both labels on the internet, though they are members of totally different families. I am suspecting the Ironweed name has gotten applied to both plants, because of the similarity in the flowers and growth habits. Boneset is a large showy plant I see growing mostly in dryer areas near water…and a magnet for insects of all types. This specimen is at Factory to Pasture Pond in Kennebunk, where there is a good sized, though isolated, stand of it. I have been watching it daily to see when the bugs would start coming.
I was actually photographing this Monarch on the same plant, when the bee flew in. Twofer!
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/200th and 1/400th @ ISO 160 and 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
7/11/2012: Water Hyacinth at Roger’s Pond
There is, as I mentioned yesterday, a small bathtub sized ornamental pond (or what looks like one…it may be accidental) a few yards from the banks of the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine. It has a lush growth of Water Hyacinth and Arrowroot, and is attracting more than its share of dragonflies, considering the main pond is only a few yards the other side. Yesterday the Water Hyacinth was coming into bloom, throwing up its spikes in the bright noon-day sun. This low angle shot shows the spike against the bright foliage of the trees across the river and the blue of the sky. I was able to pull the clouds back to show some detail even there.
Following that is a closer shot, showing more detail in the flowers. I have to admit, I had never looked closely enough to see the little yellow dots until I got these images up for processing on the laptop.
Water Hyacinth has its beauty, of course, but it is a totally invasive weed which is choking waterways in many parts of the country.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm wide angle macro with 1.5x digital tel-converter function. 1) f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320 and 2) f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
7/6/2012: The Hillside, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
As I mentioned a few days ago, my wife and I spent a day at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Maine this week. It is becoming an anniversary tradition, although next year we may try to vary the timing to see the garden in another flowering season. The CMBG always amazes me. It is so unlikely that it is there at all. Boothbay is quaint and touristy, and a bit up-scale for the Maine Coast, but it is hardly a metropolitan hub with resources for something like a world class botanical garden. And yet, there it is.
The light was particularly good this trip, for some reason, or maybe my camera is just that much better at capturing it. This is a white Penstimon from the Hillside Gardens which feature a blend of more natural wild-flower plantings on a relatively steep landscaped slope with many rock ledges. I really like the way the flower is illuminated from inside by the shaft of sun through the overhanging pines.
This is a good example of what the Canon SX40HS can do in 24mm macro (close focus to 0 centimeters) when you also use the 1.5x digital te-converter function. The resulting 32mm field of view and magnification gives a very natural macro, with great depth of field and image scale.
At the other extreme, the Stonecrop that follows was taken at 840mm equivalent field of view, plus 1.5x digital tel-converter for a 1240mm macro effect. Here it is as much about the bokeh as the subject. Shooting at high magnification allows for an intimate approach to followers (bugs, etc) that you could not otherwise approach. This flower was poking up over a ledge behind other plantings 8 feet away.
What follows, still from the hillside gardens, is a mass planting of purple Penstimon, framed at about 50mm equivalent for a natural view…and then a close up of the blooms, again using the wide-angle macro plus digital tel-converter function.
I have lots more flowers, which you will see over the next days.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. ISO 125-200.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
6/29/2012: Rose Pogonia
I posted a pic of Wild Bergamot a few days ago. I found the flower in a more or less abandoned gravel pit where a rising water-table is creating emergent wetlands, and the broken ground is providing opportunity for all kinds of enterprising plants to try the neighborhood. This is another such plant. There were hundreds of these delicate orchids growing where water was standing an inch or so deep along the edge of the impromptu cattail marsh up on the lip of the pit. Otherwise known as Snakemouth Orchid, the Rose Pogonia grows in boggy, wet areas across much of Canada and the Northern US. As it happens I had never seen it before and I am pretty sure it does not grow anywhere near the gravel pit…so how did it get there???
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. 32mm equivalent field of view (24mm macro for close focus and 1.5x digital tel-converter function for image scale.)
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
6/25/2012: Gravel Pit
While I wait for my replacement electric scooter, I am without transportation for my photoprowels when the girls have both cars, so yesterday I decided to explore the semi-abandoned gravel pit more or less next door. A rising water table is fast turning the pit into a wetland. There are two sizable ponds in the bottom and even on the upper levels, cattail marshes are forming in every wet spot. It is an interesting process to watch… Nature reclaiming and transforming a disturbed area right before my eyes.
The plant above is Wild Bergamot, or bee plant, which I have always assumed was an non-native invasive. A quick look at the wiki for the plant shows that it is indeed native. I love the way the clear morning light has pulled out all the details and subtle color is the the blossoms. This is a long telephoto macro, 1240mm equivalent field of view at 5 feet, and that contributes to the effective bokah. f5.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Canon SX40HS in Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
6/22/2012: Prairie Sunflowers
My last day at the Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival I took part in what was called the Prairie Ramble. Our fearless leaders were Julie Zickefoose (of The Bluebird Effect fame) and Keith Corliss (a local historian and birder) but Rick Bohn, a life long resident and expert in the plains (and an excellent photographer) was with us and had done much of the scouting and preparation for the outing. He had staked and labeled many of the wildflowers and grasses of interest in the short-grass prairie, and found us a nice set of tepee rings. Our primary destination was the School Sections between Carrington and Chase National Wildlife Refuge. The School Sections are land that was set aside by the government to support higher education in the state (part of the “land-grant college” movement). The idea was that the land would be put into production and the funds realized would go directly to support a state college. Much of the land has been sold off by now (in all states, not just in North Dakota) but these 4 sections (4 square miles) of prairie remain unbroken. They are grazed by cattle and sheep every summer, which maintains them in much the same state as they would have been in when wildfire and buffalo kept the grasses short and the woody plants out. As such they are a real treasure…a place where you can still experience something of the unbroken high prairie, with its wildflowers, its bugs, its reptiles, birds and mammals. 4 square miles sounds huge, but it is just a tiny dot in the farmlands that lap right up to its boarders.
It was still misting after an night of heavy rain when we got to the School Sections, the clouds still looked ominous, and the grasses were soaked and soaking, but we piled out of the bus with good-will, galoshes (those who remembered to pack them), and rain gear and set off on a long slow circuit of the hills above the road. By 10am. when this image was captured, the rain clouds were fleeing east ahead of a 20mph wind and the sun was breaking through big puffy cumulous clouds. These are Prairie Sunflowers, and got down low to catch them against the sky. For this image I left two of my fellow ramblers in for scale (and for fun).
The second shot is a more traditional composition (and is probably what my fellow ramblers thought I was taking in the first shot 🙂 )
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 24mm equivalent field of view at the macro setting. f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. 2) 62mm equivalent field of view and macro, f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.