Jimsonweed

[Ed Vatza]

For those of you unfamiliar with this plant, the following is taken from the Audubon Guide to Wildflowers.

"This rank smelling plant... All parts of the plants are very poisonous. Cattle and sheep have died from grazing on it, and humans have been poisoned from eating the fruit for its narcotic properties. Touching the leaves and flowers may cause dermatitis in susceptible humans." And yet the flowers are so beautiful.

Image was made this morning using my Canon Rebel XT, Sigma 150mm Macro lens, Canon 430 EX Flash with LumiQuest Softbox, tripod-mounted with a Novoflex Focusing Rail

1/50 sec @ f/16; ISO 400; -1/3 EV; FEC -1

[Lana Hays]

Ed
Seems the more beautiful.....the more dangerous with some things in nature. Love the pinwheel shape and the color. I think this one is difficult to shoot with the depth of the flower. You certainly have the sharpness on the right part. I'm wondering what this might look like if you used some extension tubes and got really close thus having the entire frame filled with the flower. Just a thought....that seems like a good idea at the time. Well done.

[Julie Kenward]

Excellent job on putting the focus where it needs to be, Ed. The soft parts of the flower appear soft; the main parts are nicely in focus. Perfect! My one suggestion would be to lose the light OOF flower in the ULC. It keeps pulling my eye away from the great job you did on the main subject.

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks for the feedback Lana and Julie.

This particular flower has caused me a great deal of consternation. I know I made over 200 images over three days just to get to when I am in this image. And its still not perfect. Since the flower is trumpet-like, dof has been a killer especially since the most interesting part is inside the tube along with the pinwheel shape. Getting both proved to be pretty difficult. Then there were continuous background issues. Stopping down for dof kept bringing all kinds of background leaves and flowers into play. It was very frustrating. I ended up folding leaves back, etc. etc.

Gotta love the challenge! :)