mini-Geranium

[John Chardine]

My partner and horticulturist rues the day she let this beauty go in the garden. It's a mini Geranium and it is very invasive. These plants have invaded our lawn, which I think is great, but don't tell! The whole flower is less than 1cm across and this image is of just the centre. I really need extension tubes to render small things like this but for now I'll just present a virtually 100%, pixel for pixel rendering. I am starting to experiment with image blending to gain depth of field but for now I'll go with this one at f8.

One thing I love about this tiny flower is that the anthers are blue and the pollen looks light blue too. So why is most pollen yellow?

Consider this a work in progress!

Date: 18 September, 2010, Time: 1416h
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Lens: EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM, 100 mm
Program: Aperture Priority
ISO 800, 1/250s, f/8
Exp. comp.: 0.0
Flash: off

[Ian Cassell]

I like this, John. I think it might be stronger if you could blur the petals more while the anthers and stamen remain in-focus, but I've been wrestling with that one myself and I know it isn't easy :) Focust stacking might be the way to go. I love the color combination here. They may be invasive, but they sure look pretty :)

[Ken Childs]

Ian be starboard. T' get somethin' this small t' have a blurred BG, you'll have t' stack. I'd like t' see one o' this completely in focus. (Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day) :D

[Ian Cassell]

Arrrrr!

Yes, I forgot to mention .... complete focus would also be cool (but would also probably need stacking, don't you think?)

[Arthur Morris]

Love the colors and selective sharpness but wish that you had moved a bit up and left so that the pink thing were not so close to the anthers (?)--the blue things, on our left....

[Adrian David]

I like it as presented. The focus is where it should be, imho....If you blur more the BG petals it would be more of an abstract...With more DOF you will loose the "mystery" of it. I think that it has just enough DOF to let you know at what you are looking and to create a nice contrast between the stamens and the petals....

[Linda Dulak]

John: I love this one! It has a bit of mystery to it and especially so if it's as small as you describe. What I find especially interesting is that there are a few bits of pollen on the stamen. So, John, tell us why most pollen is yellow -- or rather ask your partner. I can't think I've sen a plant with blue pollen before.

Linda

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey John,
Good discussion going on here about DOF! While I am generally a f32 guy......i like the shallow DOF images when done well! I think you nailed the focus point.....but I am with the otheres that wanted the BG a little more OOF. I'm with Artie too on the moving to the left.....but since this is a square crop.....have any room on the left?

[John Chardine]

Many thanks for all the excellent commentary and sorry not to get back until now (I'm in the field working on gannets).

These flowers are a work in progress for me. I have some focus stacks to work with, and they have everything in focus. To blur the petals even more, I could have opened up to f4 from f8, so long as the things I wanted in focus, remained in focus.

This image was made outdoors. The flowers follow the sun so to get a face-on image, you end up blocking the light, so I moved to one side which did put the pistil near the stamens on one side. By the way I forgot to mention I used a white shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.

The other problem shooting outdoors in natural light is that f32 is going to give you an impossibly slow shutter speed, which then means that any minute movement in the subject caused by even the lightest waft of a breeze will be captured as a blur. I could have brought the flower indoors or I could have used one of those nice macro flashes Canon makes, but which I don't yet own. Christmas is coming up though!!!