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.
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