February cactus flowers

[Steve Foss]

No, I didn't travel to Arizona (worse luck!)

These were shot in my home today using natural light and reflectors. Guess the cactus thought February was the right time to spring forth.

All with the Canon 30D, Canon 100 macro, iso100 from a tripod with remote shutter release. The flowers, when open are a big bigger than a pencil eraser.

1/13 at f11

2 sec at f32

1/50 at f4 (colors slightly cooled and desaturated to further soften the look)

[Paul]

Steve,

I find #2 absolutley facinating. I like how that black background makes the colors pop. I had one of these catci, but when I forgot it next to a window, it was too cold, becuase not is almost dead. It some tiny blooms on it but they look pretty unhealthy.

[Dbl]

Nice work Steve, I really like the dark background as Paul mentioned in #2. Makes the flower really stand out.

[finnbay]

Hey, some nice shots! We've got a Christmas cactus that blooms in the winter. Last year it had 20 blooms, this year 1. Beautiful flowers.

[polarsusd81]

I can't see the pics while I am here at work, but I had a cactus plant a few years back that would bloom in February as well. I was somehow able to kill it though, didn't water it enough.

[mmeyer]

Nice shots Steve. I like the 3rd the best. It's almost abstract.

Thanks for sharing

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, everybody.

Happy birthday, BTW, Mike. I also like the third one best. Lots of macro folks abbreviate things SOA and DOA (shallow on arrival and deep on arrival) based on the photographer's preference for shallow depth of focus or deep depth of focus.

I usually lean toward the SOA myself, because I like the statements of color and texture it allows, but not always.

[FishOn!]

Very cool work Steve! All this tech talk! Boy, Ive got a lot to learn! Not to be repetative, but im crazy about shot two. The blossom is wonderful, but I also love the thorns and the little white hairs around them. They really catch the light.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, FishOn. Lots to learn, yes, but it's a lot of fun to learn while doing something you enjoy.

[mmeyer]

Thanks for the birthday wish Steve. I was just looking again at those and it's amazing how shallow you can get your depth of field in macro work isn't it. I mean, look at that 3rd shot, the only thing in focus is the tips of the flowers. Unless you did a lot of blurring in pp that is really really shallow. I just think that's cool.

Very nice work as usual Steve.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, Mike.

I lassoed the three in-focus points and applied very light sharpening, then selected inverse and ran noise reduction on the background but no gaussian blur. That's the most I wanted to do on it.

The bloom was only a few inches in front of the front of the lens, and at f4 from that distance, DOF is just a SLIVER! I experimented on that shot from f2.8 to f11, but it was the f4 image that delivered the right combination of sharp edges and blurred foreground and background.