Red Sumac, Rhus glabra
Red Sumac, Rhus glabra, is a plant with both wonderful textures as well as color. Sometimes said to be poison, the fruit is described by medicinal plant sources as being high in Vitamin C and providing a tart juice.
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Late Flowers
Late summer brings some great color from wildflowers that grow in groups. In this abandoned field there are sprays of Canada Goldenrod and white and blue Asters. Also common is the smaller variety Common Sunflower that is native to North America, sprays of Common Toadflax and the long flowering Birdsfoot Trefoil. Wildflowers may soon disappear as the days get colder but they have saved a great display to the end.
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Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora
A walk through our nearby Carolinian forest produces the sight if a waxy translucent flower growing through the dead lives. It is called Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora, and it is a saprophytic plant, that is one that lives on dead organic matter. More correctly, it is parasitic on some types of fungi and its white color (rarely reddish) is a sign of its lack of chlorophyll.
Its flower is also unusual looking as you can see below.
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Rugosa Rose, Rosa rugosa
Not long ago I wrote a post on Image Stacking and some of the software that can be used with it. It is often used with things like macro shots of insects but I also see it as a very useful technique with wildflowers where the lens used may not always provide a lot of Depth of Field. With this image and the angle shot from, if I used my 180 macro lens to focus on the center stamens, both the petal edges and leaves would be out of focus. I ended up taking a series of 9 images ranging from focus on the edge of the petals and gradually moving back to the leaves. The images were processed in Zerene Stacker which combined them to give a focused image throughout that range.
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Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea
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 4th of 4 |
I have been photographing wildflowers this year and my favorite lens for this is the Canon 180mm. It is extremely sharp and a great macro lens but it has a very shallow depth of field, so much so that it is usually not possible to get the close and far sides both in focus. An interesting solution to this is image stacking. This involves taking a series of shots with the focus changing from the front to the back and having at least one shot of each area in focus in one of the images.
The next step is to combine the images into a single image and this can be done in a number of specialist software programs. Among them are CombineZP (free program), Zerene Stacker ( free for now) and Helicon Focus ($30 but there is a 30 day free trail available). The image at the top is a stack of 4 images processed in Helicon Focus.
At this point I still have a lot to learn about this technique but it looks like a useful tool. Later this year I am planning on doing some extreme macros of insects and will probably need to use about 20+ images.
Here are a couple more results, both from stacks of 4 images.
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Alpine Meadow
Some of the chairlifts at Whistler, British Columbia, operate during the summer and give visitors an opportunity to reach areas high in the mountains. The clear clean air shows these flower covered meadows at their best.
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Sunflower, Helianthus annuus
Artists and photographers seem drawn to Sunflowers. I find them irresistible. When I saw a large field full of Sunflowers yesterday, I had to stop and take some pictures. They are a native annual plant here in North America but that is a smaller plant than this large cultivated variety known as Russian Giant, more often seen.
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Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is a restful oasis in the middle of busy Vancouver. It is the first full Chinese garden constructed outside of China, built in the mid 80s, and financed both by the Chines and Canadian governments as well as private interests. The garden was named in honor of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the father of modern China and a visitor to Vancouver on his travels.
 Fragrant Water Lily |
 Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden |
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Butchart Garden at night
One of the main tourist attractions of the Victoria, British Columbia area is Butchart Gardens. There are 55 acres of cultivated gardens, including a sunken garden, a rose garden, an Italian garden, and a Japanese Garden.
The image above was taken about an hour after sunset and it is about a 45 second exposure, taken with a Canon 5D, 17-40mm lens at f/10 and ISO100.
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Spiderwort, Tradescantia virginiana
With a name like Spiderwort, you may not have a lot of expectations for the look of the flower but you would be in for a pleasant surprise. The Spiderwort, Tradescantia virginiana, is a gorgeous flower of vivid blue set off by long yellow stamens.
Like Day Lilys, each flowers last but a day.
Spiderwort, Tradescantia virginiana
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