Which DoF? Day Lily Stamens.

[ktuli]

OK - since I've been shooting mostly spiders and bug recently, I finally turned my attention back to some flowers. I shot a couple shots of the pollen stamens on a day lily in our backyard. I fooled around with multiple DoF's... which do you like better?

f/2.8 with no flash:


f/16 with flash:


Oddly enough, those were handheld and I somehow managed to frame them almost 100% identically. These are the JPGs straight out of the camera... I may switch them with the processed RAWs over the weekend, but I'm kind of in a rush right now, so I'm being lazy (sorry!).

- Bill

[revi]

OK - since I've been shooting mostly spiders and bug recently, I finally turned my attention back to some flowers. I shot a couple shots of the pollen stamens on a day lily in our backyard. I fooled around with multiple DoF's... which do you like better?

f/2.8 with no flash:
...

f/16 with flash:
...


- Bill

Sorry to say, but neither hits the spot for me:
I like the idea of having only the stamen sharp, but what bugs me is that the front stamen (closest to camera) are out of focus. So I'd say either focus on those, and/or use a slightly smaller aperture (4-5.6?)

As it is, I like the idea of reducing the petals to (recognisable) 'blobs' of colour

Remco.

[ktuli]

Remco,

Thanks for the comment. After looking at these, I may decide to redo these shots properly with a tripod. I was thinking it might be an interesting exercise in DoF and do the whole range from f/2.8 to f/32 in 1 stop increments just to see what it is like. It might even make for a nice series of prints... who knows.

- Bill

[Geoff F]

For me, Bill, the F2.8 is just too shallow and the F16 needs a little bit of carefully adjusted extra brightness.

But one focus problem will always be the male part of the group on the far left which will be difficult to get in sharp focus with everything else.

What is that part called? It is a great many years since I did basic flower bioligy and stigma, style, anther, etc are all 'swimming around in my brain' but I just can't recall which is which.

[ktuli]

Geoff,

I actually redid the shoot today, with a couple different angles... one of which I simply decided to remove the stigma altogether.

Now for the flower anatomy lesson.

The Stigma is actually the female reproductive portion of the flower and received the pollen - it is the tip of the Pistil which also consists of the Style ("stem") and the Ovary (inside the flower). The Stamen is the male reproductive portion and is where the pollen is produced - the tip of the Stamen is the Anther with the Filament being the "stem" of the Stamen.

I'll see about getting some other sets of those shots shared at some point this weekend.

- Bill

[Geoff F]

Now for the flower anatomy lesson.

That brings it back to my mind, Bill. General Science was one of the exams which I actually passed 45 years ago.