PF Photography Thread

Andre

Anyway, spent sometimes in the modest dutch forest and heather fields today to shoot ~200 pictures. I named this picture wow-heath.



The species is Erica tetralix, but this specimen was the only one covered with those thick sticky water like bubbles.

Wow.

It was way too late for dew, I see that the leaves also possess sticky, adhesive glands but this is weird.

turbo

Any bugs caught in the sticky stuff? Around here, we have little plants called "sundews" that often live in nutrient-poor places like on rotting wood. They have sticky stuff on their leaves that looks tempting to insects. Bugs get stuck in the goo, and as they struggle to escape, the leaf folds around the bug, and as the bud dies, the plant absorbs its nutrients.

Andre

We have sundew as well, but no bugs here and lots of these flowers without the sticky stuff. It was close to this tree



Notice the boxes in the centre at the back. If you get real close it loox like this:

lisab

Ah, very nice...I bet it's a wonderful place for a bear to go on a long explore .

Gad

wonderful photo, was it cold when you took it?


edit: I just note the two lines beneath the photo, I thought it was dew … amazing

Andre

Actually no, it was around 70F maybe around 10:30 AM, so certainly no dew and as said it was sticky. Moreover this was the only one I saw that way, others looked like this:

Andre

Absolutely Lisa, and no need for balloons and dangerous expotitions.



Anyway, the more common heather kind on those pictures is Calluna vulgaris, which looks like this, when getting close with the macro lens:

Borek

I suppose you are playing with your new lens All nice pictures.

This plant is quite rare in Poland, obviously it prefers to be close to Atlantic.

Andre

Behind that flowering heather, this wild scotch pine Pinus sylvestris captured a Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia):



A detailed look on its Rowan pomes ("berries")



It was rather windy and it was real tough to get that tack sharp.

Andre

Thanks, yes every now and then, one has to go out and enjoy nature, trying to capture it in pictures.

Also heather fields like these are rather common here. Image google for instance "heide"

Another picture I made yesterday:

Andre

This little fellow just passed by and I just had to capture him on the sensor



(crop on 75%)

Unfortunately, he insisted on sitting on the fence, instead of one the flowers I offered him.

Full frame at 20% and rotated 90 degrees; as he always sits heads up.

Borek

Ok, I know - this is stupid. Today I have seen a smiling face in a kitchen sink.



If you wonder if I should not consult a GP - yes I should, I am cold, I am sneezing, I am coughing, obviously my brain plays tricks on me.

physics girl phd

Our middle child (Max) is working on a project on "camouflage" this weekend. It was suggested that children find animals in their backyards, but we live in a city condo and don't have a backyard. Since my mother was also in town (visiting to see the new baby), we decided to entertain her by taking a roadtrip to the Biltmore (Vanderbilt) estate... and using the Biltmore gardens as "our backyard" (even though we were still finding a few insects in our neighborhood park).

Max used our old camera, and I used my new one. Here are a few of my favorite pictures (all at 25% original). I should have also tried out my zoom lens... but so much to haul, since I was also carrying little Ellie in her Snugglie and her diaper bag! I COULD have also probably gotten some better shots if kneeling wasn't so hard to do... but these were fun. These first two are from my camera (though Max pointed out the bugs):





This last one (the frog) Max did when we sent him to the ponds alone... my mom was tired, Ellie needed to nurse, and Patrick was getting bored (since most of the gardens sadly isn't wheelchair accessible) so we just sat down in a comfy spot:

Andre

Nice work PGP,

So it's dew drop season here. Found this one this morning



the crop is on 100%! Okay I did some creative RAW processing, a tad sharpening, some contrast enhancement. 20% luminance noise reduction, 55% chrominance noise reduction.

This is the unprocessed JPG output:



The full frame on 20%

fuzzyfelt

I don't know why I always forget to look in this thread. Lovely photos!

lisab

Wow, that's really awesome .

turbo

Inspired by Andre's nice hiking photos from Germany, I have ordered a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3. Now that I spend a lot of my time with the "Velcro Dog", it's tougher to break out the DSLRs, lenses, etc, except in controlled environments. I see lots of interesting stuff when Duke and I are out walking, visiting, etc, so it's time for a quality pocket-camera with a lot more "oomph" than my old Olumpus 3040.

I'm not too concerned about the lack of manual settings, since I intend for this to be used as a point-and-shoot camera and value portability for this application. I also ordered a 16G memory card in anticipation of taking advantage of the camera's dedicated "movie mode" button. See some interesting action unfolding? Shoot it in HD.

I'll let you all know how it turns out. These Lumix compacts are quite tiny but the Leica lenses are great. I can't wait. 3" LCD, 10 megapixel images from a 12 mp sensor, in-camera distortion control, 12x optical zoom. I have no excuse not to carry this when hiking, hunting, etc, and I have all kinds of reasons for leaving the big Pelican case, 30Ds, lenses, etc at home in some situations.