364: Blossoming Lemon

Settings: f/11 (approx,) 1/8, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 33mm extension, fluorescent lamp, black velvet, cable release, tripod. Slight tone curve / colour adjustments and crop.

185: Unusual Alliums

Elephant garlic flowers, cut a few weeks ago, but still starting to bloom in a small vase of water. The uncut heads in the garden are at about the same stage now.
ettings: f/2.8, 1/4, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, white reflector & black backdrop, tripod.

157: Twisted Onion Top

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 16mm extension, 1/4 flash, grey foam, white reflector.

144: Chamomile Flowers

Grainy but sharp - better this way than otherwise.
When I left home on Friday, only a few emerging petals could be seen. Now the plants are in full bloom; some of these flowers need picking to dry for tea now.

Settings: f/8, 1/500, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm 1:1.4, cropped.

106: Grape Hyacinth

Muscari botryoides, or the common Grape Hyacinth - in very close-up detail. The camera was pointed right downwards on the flowerhead, almost touching it due to the extreme close focus. I found it difficult to get the flash to illuminate adequately the areas I wanted, but I got an okay result - "different," you could call it.
Another reason to find myself one of those offboard flash hotshoe boxes that have a PC socket; I have the other bits I need.

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 88mm extension, full flash, foil reflector, tripod.

072: Skeletal Hydrangea

Two hydrangea flowers, frozen, dried and worn bare by the winter. They have become fused together, and so create a kind of skeletal tent - complete with poles and smoke vents. The entrance must be underneath; I didn't check, but I can easily imagine a ladybird taking shelter under here.

This was a straight-from-camera job as I was away from home, no post-processing apart from a little cropping (not so easily done to an accurate degree with simple image viewer software.)

Settings: f/11, 1/125, ISO 100, 50mm M42, 29mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, handheld.

024: Hyacinth Blooms

It's gloomy and raining. But today the hyacinths have come into full bloom, despite having been nibbled my hungry mice a few weeks ago.
The blue ends of the fresh flowers have a lovely satin sheen - they look like the kinds of things that squeak when you rub them together. The subtle variety of blue tones are very pleasing.
The image was shot using the usual manual flash macro setup I have been addicted to for the last week or so, this time with one 16mm extension ring. Settings are f/9, 1/180 sec. ISO 100. The background was white, but now slightly blue - most likely because the flash fired mostly on the flowers and reflected blue light to it. The background probably should have been closer, but I think the tint is fine.
I took some earlier photos of hyacinth flowers (2008, I think,) but those were not taken using a flash and it clearly shows. The colours are crisper, brighter and more contrasty this time. Especially with the distinction between the blue and violet ends, which was murky without flash. The white balance is quite accurate now - I remember that I had to tweak the earlier photos a lot to get them looking okay, and even then they were not quite right. I'm getting to appreciate the judicious use of flash light a great deal more than when I started using a digital camera a few years ago.
This is also the first photo I have posted that I photoshopped - but only to clone stamp out the most obvious dust blobs. I couldn't live with keeping them on this image - they made it look dirty when it should all just look crisp and pure.

006: Snow Anemones

The snow is still here, and small icicles continue to form from the meltwaters.
It's been difficult to find good subjects today, despite the profound change that an unusually precipitous cold snap can bring. Maybe it's because I find the local area too familiar (or maybe it's just a bit dull,) but I'll put it down to the cold, a slight lack of enthusiasm and the fact that I went out once already today - just not with my camera.
I went to buy some onions and crackers on that short trip. Some of those badly-needed onions were cooked slowly in butter until light brown, slushy and sweet, which when added to lentils and some leftover roast vegetables made a very warming thick soup-stew. Just the thing for days like this. So I'm justifiably compensated, as well as sated. I could have gone out twice, but I wanted to take time over making an interesting lunch today.

Japanese anemones still provide a pretty display in winter, long after they have dried up and fallen still. Flowerheads stubbornly cling the wispy stems and provide a ghostly and beautiful sight when coated in frost or swathed in thick snow.
When shooting them like this, I find that the paler the backdrop the better, and as wide an aperture you can get away with to select details, smudge others and impart a satisfying sense of depth. But not so wide that only one or two heads can be seen. This one was shot at f/2.8.