Posts in Category: macro
6/28/2009
Infinate Cadillac
Happy Sunday!
This is perhaps an appropriate shot for the last entry from this year’s trip to Acadia. I tried several before getting this low angle, flower and lichen in the foreground, expanse of the rocky top and ziz zag of the environmental fencing, and then leaping out across Frenchman’s bay to the horizon with its clouds. I was trying to capture at least one aspect of Cadillac and Acadia: the sense of being suspended, all life, from the flower struggling against odds to the humans tiny on the near horizon, between the rocky, gritty particular and an awesome infinity. For me, that is an essential element of the Acadia experience.
Practically speaking, I used Program Shift (see In Praise of Program Shift on Point and Shoot Landscape) to get the smallest aperture for greatest depth of field to keep everything from the foreground rock detail and the flower petals to the far horizon relatively sharp. It took me quite a few shots and 20 minutes to find the right flower. F8 on a P&S is pretty deep focus, but I found that I had to put the flower up into the field a bit and let some of the rock go soft right at the bottom of the frame. I cropped out the out of focus area in Lightroom during post processing.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F8.0 @ 1/200th @ ISO 100. Programed auto, program shifted for smallest aperture.
In Lightroom, besides the crop, Recovery for the sky, some Fill Light and added Contrast to compensate in the foreground, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape sharpen preset.
6/18/2009
Asctiou Garden's
Asctiou Gardens is an Azalea and Rhododendron garden, on the Japanese model, in Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine, near Acadia National Park. It was originally planted and landscaped by Charles Savage in the late 50s and has gone through several incarnations since. It is now managed and tended by the Mount Desert Land and Garden Preserve and a staff of volunteers. It is beautiful in any season, but it is stunning when the Azaleas and Rhododendron are in bloom. I have been on MDI three times in season, and each time have come away amazed. The variety of colors, the massed blossoms, the vibrancy of it all against the water features and delicate green lines of the carefully tended trees and landscape…it all just short of too much.
These are all pretty straitforward shots with minimal processing in Lightroom. I used both the macro extremes of the Sony DSC H50. Close in and tel, for contrasting effects. Close in for deep detail, tel for compression. (See Lupine Lessons: Point of View on Point and Shoot Landscape for more on using your zoom and macro to good effect.)
In this array of shots, each thumbnail links back to the lightbox view at Wide Eyed In Wonder (my SmugMug site).
And one final vision, where the bokeh is as vital as the flowers themselves.
6/16/2009
Lupines in Close
Lupines are impressive plants. A little research yesterday turned up the fact that they are grown as a food crop, both for animal and human consumption, in many parts of the world. The beans have to be soaked in salt water for several days to remove toxins, but after soaking they are used in dishes in Germany, in particular, around the Mediterranean Sea and through the near-East. Native Americans in both North and South America harvested and ate the Lupine beans.
This close up shot shows the finer detail of the flower structure, which is often obscured in the view of the massed flowers.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Cropped slightly in Lightroom for composition. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Blackpoint moved right. Landscape sharpen preset.
From Mount Desert Island/Bar Harbor ME 2009.
And, one more shot to show the variety of colors in this patch.
Variety Lupine
6/10/2009
Fringed Puccon
I have mentioned twice now the scarcity of real prairie remnants on the North Dakota prairie. Everywhere you look it is wheat or soybean desert or the prairie-like mix of invasive plants, mostly Kentucky Bluegrass and Timothy. The section pictured yesterday, and one we found a few days before in better light are exceptions, not the rule. I say we found it, but of course the refuge Waterfowl Production Area manager who was our guide knew exactly where it was, as it harbors the last of the native prairie plants she hopes to see reestablished someday on the lands she manages.
Fringed Poccon is just one of the spring wildflowers found only on remnant short-grass prairie. As a bonus I am including images of a few of the others we found that day at the foot of this piece.
There are few cameras better for photographing wildflowers (imho) than the Sony H50. The articulated LCD allows shots from ground level, and the 2 cm close focus in macro makes close detail easy. The only drawback is that the small sensor size makes the relative size of the aperture, even wide open, physically small, which leads to more depth of field and more distracting backgrounds than some like in a wildflower shot. I have come to like the more present background as being closer to our actual experience of the flower in the flied, but I will admit to admiring those flower portraits where the bloom floats on sea of attractive but undistracting bokeh. This is not one of those. It is the flower as it sits in the world.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, some cropping for composition. Recovery for the bright yellows. Added Clarity and Vibrance, and Landscape sharpen preset.
From Prairies and Potholes 2009.
Wild Flax
Prairie Smoke
Pussy Toes
5/29/2009
Luminous Lady Slipper
So, okay, I thought (and maybe you thought) that I was done with Lady Slippers. I got more and better shots of Lady Slippers this year than ever before because there were more and better Lady Slippers.
Then, last Saturday, I took a walk down to my local warbler hole for some birding and video (hopefully), and went off on a side trail looking for Rhodora in bloom, and there they were…thousands of Lady Slippers! Lady Slippers in the early sun, sneaking in across the forest floor. 1000’s sounds like an exaggeration, I know, but it is not. Within a 1/4 mile I am totally confident that a count of Lady Slippers visible from the trail would have totaled over 1000. I have never seen anything remotely like it.
When the light is behind a Lady Slipper, two things happen. Light gets caught in the fine hairs that cover the whole plant, and the inflated petal just lights up as though it was filled with, well, light! Catching the effect is difficult but not impossible. Maybe best is when you can get the flower against a dark background where the sun isn’t hitting, but a well out-of-focus forest isn’t all bad. Bokeh. Lots of potential for Bokeh.
In this shot, I found the added bonus of the Star Flower nestled up against the Lady Slipper.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro (taken just about touching the LS). F3.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
Slight Recovery in Lightroom, along with added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen. Blackpoint to the right. Cropped for composition. Because the background was a bit too distracting, I used the Local Adjustments brush to paint on a mask over the background, and then decreased Clarity and Contrast.
From Around Home Kennebunk ME.
5/27/2009
Fringed Polygala (Gaywings)
This is a somewhat unconventional composition but the subject suggest it. Normally you would want the subject facing into the image, not pushing its way out (not necessarily terms we apply to flowers, but in this case they are apt). And, again, in this case, we violate the rule because it adds a dynamic tension that makes the image (I think) more interesting.
This flower is only about 1 inch in diameter and grows about that from the ground, so I am right down on the forest floor for this shot, with the camera resting among the ferns and other wildflowers (carefully so as not to crush anything).
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.0 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
In Lightroom, just my usual added Clarity and Vibrance and sharpen. Blackpoint slid to the right slightly to intensify the color.
From Rachel Carson NWR Seasons.
And the more traditional view.
The more tradition view of Fringed Polygala
5/26/2009
Mayflower against the Log
It is the season for these close up views, low to the ground where suddenly everything is in flower. Canada May Flower. It was all over, but it is small and tends be hard to photograph because it is hard to make it pop out from the confused background of the forest floor. Here the log made a nice backdrop.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.0 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto. -.7 EV exposure compensation to preserve detail in the white blooms.
In Lightroom, some Recovery for the blooms, added Clarity and Vibrance, sharpen.
5/25/2009
Lady Slipper (another view)
Another Lady Slipper (or two). On this one you can see the hairs on the inflated petal. Taken from 1/4 inch or so with the macro on the H50.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F4.0 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Programed Auto.
Cropped slightly from the left for composition. Added Vibrance and Clarity, sharpened.
5/22/2009
Sculpture of Seaweed and Light
I took a run to the beach after capturing the dandelion yesterday, and continued the theme of low angle shots involving mostly the light. The tide was coming in fast (this is the Gulf of Maine and tides run 10 to 12 feet on a mild day), and the tide-was littered with all kinds of seaweed. As the surf folded and molded it with each pass, and as the low light caught it, translucent, against the sea, it made for some fascinating shapes. I got my toes wet quite a few times but managed to keep the camera out of the drink.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.
A touch of Recovery in Lightroom for the highlights. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen.
From Around Home: Kennebunk ME.
And the video version.
5/21/2009
House of the rising sun!
So, woke up this morning without a picture to my name. No. Not really. But I was inspired to get out before my shower to see what was happening, photographically speaking, in the yard. The early sun caught in the dandelion was irresistible. I tried a bunch of angles: high, low, with the sun, against the sun, etc. For this shot I came in almost as close as possible. 1/2 inch or so. Any closer and the forward reach of the globe went totally out of focus. Maneuvering the sun right behind the center mass of the seed globe and still catching the light in the umbrellas took a bit of trial and error, but this one works, I think.
Sony DSC H50 at full wide and macro. F5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Programed auto. -.7 EV exposure compensation.
In Lightroom, lots of fill light for the stem and center, added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen. Some Recovery and blackpoint, and moved the exposure slider to the right slightly.