Tiny Grasshopper on Cactus Flower (click for more)	Colorful Sunset  Fuji Sensia 100 slide film, Olympus OM-2n camara with manual exposure, lens was  90 mm Vivitar Macro.
Tree at Sunset Fuji Sensia 100 slide film, Olympus OM-2n, manual exposure, 24mm Olympus lens.	Above is a wide-angle shot of the observing field at Fort McKavett. I was trying to capture the feel of all the yellow flowers... A few telescopes have been set up...
This I took at Ft. McKavett as the last rays of sunshine caught it. It appears to be a Stemless Evening Primrose! (87k, 800x671 pixels)	Here's a close-up of the flowers/grass covering the field from another photo: 3-25-flow-crop7.jpg   I believe the white flowers are Sandwort, and the yellow are Jones Selenia.
More Wildflowers: The Austin Pix On the way over to Austin for an interview I stopped and shot some wildflower pictures. These pictures are also shown on my  Wildflower Showcase.	This one features a grasshopper: .
Here's a close-up of a Bluebonnet:	The red wildflowers (Indian Paintbrush or Texas Paintbrush) were very nice:
And here's a close-up, personal, and large shot of one of the Paintbrushes "Real Close!"	Details for "Austin Pix":  Fuji Sensia 100 speed slide film, Vivitar 90mm  macro lens on my Olympus OM-2n camera, manual exposures.  Conditions were great, no direct sunlight (which would cause  too much contrast and wipe out detail...). There were high, thin clouds that passed a lot of light.

Pictures taken on a field at Ft. McKavett that, by several accounts, had been totally brown less than 7 days prior. Several people told me  that this was the greenest the field had been in 4+ years of coming  there. For the photo geeks, the Primrose shot was a 1 second exposure using a cable  release, Olympus OM-2n camera on manual, Vivitar 90 macro, Kodak Royal  Gold 100 print film. The f-stop was around 11 or 16 for max depth of  field with available light. I set it up & focused while laying on my  stomach, using my tiny "Ultrapod II" tripod to balance the very heavy  lens.  The "Ultrapod II" tripod is a little tiny thing made of plastic that cost $20 and only weighs a few ounces.

I traveled to Ft.McKavett to participate in an astronomy outing in March 2001.  This was sponsored by the JSCAC (Johnson Space Center Astronomy Club).  While the astronomy suffered from a bit of cloudiness, I took a few sunset pix that turned out particularly well.

Flower Photography Techniques:

• In order to take close up photos of this quality a tripod is absolutely essential.
• Use a "macro" (close-up) lens or the macro mode on your digital camera. 
• You prefer days where there's no direct sunlight as sunlight washes fine detail.  
• Fine grained film is essential so that you can capture crisp detail without film grain. Or use your "ASA 100" setting on your digital camers. 
• Further, you need to use a high fstop (close the aperture blades) for max depth of field. 
• It also really helps to have little or no wind, so you can get away with shutter speeds of 1/60 or less.

Tripods:
Most cheap "department store" tripods can't get down 6 inches off the ground, either.  I had two tripods, neither of which was any good for this type of shooting.  My explanation to my wife:  Had to get a new tripod to be able to do this stuff, in addition to a macro (close-up) lens ;-)    I ended up with both an Ultrapod II and a Bogen 3401 tripod (does both vertical & horizontal center column) with a 3275 junior geared head.  Both setups have proven themselves to be a great asset to flower/macro work. 

Scans:

I scanned these slides/negs with my old Minolta Dimage Scan Dual scanner & processed in photoshop.   This scanner has been superseded with a Nikon Coolscan IV ED.

See More: Flowers and Landscapes

Copyright © 1998-2003 Dick Locke.  All Rights Reserved.
Image Use Information