Blue Iris

Really it's purple, but had a time getting that exactly right. Also had a time looking for a good simple portrait of this flower. So here it is so far.

Note I will add a time lapse of this flower opening shortly.

 

Thanks Peter and Gale.

You can see the time lapse movie here:

http://www.nvxd.com/timelapse/blue-iris.mov

About 10 MB, QuickTime movie. If anyone needs another format, let me know and I will see if I can come up with it.

No, I will not put my stuff on Youtube. The quality is too low!   :wink:

You may laugh, but I am actually disappointed. I was hoping for more consistency in the light between frames using an AC powered Elinchrom flash. I guess I am going to have to try other things, including hot lights. The search goes on.

This was shot with a D2X and the Nikon 85 f/2.8 PC. F11, 1/200. All processing was done using Camera RAW from Bridge, then an action recorded in CS2 to resize, sharpen and add the copyright. Took about half an hour, mostly because I had to hit return 133 times because Photo@#$%@ingshop doesn't provide a means to not have the JPEG quality dialog appear.

Recorded at 3 minute intervals, 134 frames. The flower stolen from the wife's garden. Yes I caught the blazes for stealing the nicest blue iris so far this spring!

 

Thank you. I appreciate the compliments.

Thanks. One of my favorites too.

They are always surprising for me. This is why I like to do them. Did you notice the bugs on the stem? They move at one point.

Thanks. Finding interesting flowers to shoot can be frustrating. I am trying to develop a relationship with a shop near me that gets in interesting stuff. I've even taken some prints in there to show them I am fairly serious.

I have tried the wholesale flower market here, but that is usually a mess by the time they allow us civvies in there. I need to find an "in" so I can get in there at other hours.

Of course the best way to have them is to grow them, but we only have so much back yard, and the wife rarely agrees to let me cut her flowers. She does support my photography habit, but her garden is very important to her.

 

Thanks.

Note I have just replaced the movie with one I fixed. The first frame was off.

PS, my name is Ed.

 

Thanks Melissa.

Here is another one I shot just to see using the D200 and the 85 PC. Yep, the D200 does purple better than the D2X does. Too busy to light it better, but the color is fantastic. Also here I used more tilt on the 85 to bring more of the petals into focus.

 

Well I couldn't just leave it sit there without shooting some more. Last word from me for now, I think, on purple-blue irises.

 

Glad you liked it.

1) I use a Flexfill round collapsible black background. The more velvet side is quite the light sink.
2) Cut, from our back yard.

Photo of the set up (note the background was facing the wrong way at this point:

I used the D2X's built in interval feature. I did use an AC adapter, though in this case it wasn't necessary.