Posts in Category: flowers
2/18/2009
Hot and Cold
Old Town, Albuquerque New Mexico. The mother-load of color! I am in town for the North American Nature Photographers Association Summit. The hotel and convention center are about 2 miles from Old Town. I had the late afternoon light. Not hard to figure out what to do.
Color is everywhere. I will be posting an extended appreciation of the colors of Old Town and New Mexico on Point and Shoot Landscape in the next few days. For this shot I was working from behind a locked gate that prevented me from entering the passageway to a small plaza. Chile was everywhere. These wreaths were hung casually across the back of a Santa Fe bench, in a traditional weathered copper green. I liked the contrast with the bench and with the larger Hatch chiles hanging behind. The zoom on the H50 reached out for the shot.
Because it was in deep shade, and I had to use considerable zoom, the ISO was pushed up to 400, and I still might not have gotten the shot without the Sony’s image stabilization. This is the kind of shot, though, where a higher ISO can work. There is so much detail and color that the noise, while there, is effectively massed. Even in the wall behind, the texture of the adobe hides noise.
Focus was also an issue at this relatively wide F-stop, but there was nothing I could do about it. A smaller F-stop would have pushed ISO higher or made the shot difficult to hand hold. As it was I let focus rest on the chilis closest to the viewer, which kept the carvings on the bench sharp, and have to count of the eye’s forgiving nature for the rest. I am not sure it would work as a 16×20 print, but at screen resolution it is effective, and should work at a reasonable print size.
Sony DSC H50 at 250mm equiv. F4.0 @ 1/40th @ ISO 400. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom a small adjustment to color temperature was needed because of the deep shade. Clarity and Vibrance from the Presence panel, to pop the colors. I shifted the black point slightly to the right to add intensity. Portrait sharpen preset.
From Albuquerque.
2/8/2009
Plum
I took many exposures of this flowering plum against the backdrop of the terraced vineyard, attempting to get the right balance of subject focus and out of focus background. I wanted enough detail in the vineyard so the viewer could identify the context, and so that the terraced vines created an interesting pattern…without distracting from the showy blossoms. This one of several that I like…the most close-up, with the most emphasis on the blossoms. There are other’s around it in the gallery with different effects.
For this series I used Program Shift, to select the smallest aperture available, for maximum depth of field. At the longer focal length used in this shot, that is still not much. The H50 has image sensor shift image stabilization, which makes exposures at the slow shutter speed that resulted from the Program Shift possible without a tripod. I love it.
Sony DSC H50 at an approximate equiv. focal length of 250mm. F8.0 @ 1/30 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto with program shift for max. aperture.
From Vallejo and Sonoma.
2/3/2009
Color Field
Two years ago the Jekyll Island Commission experimented with planting a wildflower mix along the causeway instead of mowing. This year the flowers were mostly gone, but for a year the display along the road out to Jekyll was absolutely stunning (maybe too stunning…it certainly distracted me the first time I drove it). I had to stop for a few images, which considering the lack of shoulders and the amount of traffic on the causeway, was not really safe or sane. But such flowers, and, on this day, filled with butterflies and bees.
I have already featured a shot from here, with my abstract butterfly on 12/27/2008d, but this shot is more about capturing the mass effect of the display. I tried several shots. You will see the best of them around this on in the gallery. This, taken from a low angle and cropped gives, imho, a good impression of the density of the flowers and the amazing patterns of color. It also captures the density of butterflies pretty well. I cropped it both to increase the panoramic effect, and to eliminate out of focus flowers in the foreground and background where they would have been a distraction (You can see there is still some out of focus toward the back). The light was subdued, late on a cloudy day, and the wind was blowing, so my exposure options were limited. Still, this, I think, works.
Sony DSC H9 at full telephoto (465mm equiv.). F4.5 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
In Lightroom, just Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpening…as well as the crop.
From Jekyll Island GA 2007-08.
1/15/2009
Red Light
Walking back and forth to the SHOT Show in Orlando Florida where I am for a week working, I keep my eyes open and my finger on the shutter release, of course.
This mass of Begonias was planted in front of a hotel…and I was struck by the light and shadows, by the textures, and by the range of reds. I tried both wide and more close-up shots and liked this moderate tele shot the best.
Sony DSC H50 at about 80mm equiv. F4.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
The image is from (actually the only image in, so far) the Orlando and Titusville Gallery