Spotted coralroot orchid

[Steve Foss]

The spotted coralroot that I found up the Echo Trail last weekend had time to flower over the last couple days, so I spent the morning up there rolling around among the ferns photographing it.

This is one of what I came away with. The blossom/petal cluster is about half the diamter of a dime.

Canon 30D, Canon 100 f2.8 macro, iso125, 2.5 sec at f11, tripod, remote shutter release, flower stalk stabilized, diffusion disk between sun and blossom

[finnbay]

That's a pretty shot, Steve. Great color! Haven't found mine yet. The area it was in is pretty grown over and that might be the key. If you needed some diffusion, it must be in a sunny spot.

[Steve Foss]

It's mixed sun and shade, Ken, and farther down the trail there is another cluster with several stalks that's growing amid a bunch of other plants and is a bit more heavily shaded.

Not ever having seen them before I sure don't know how sun/shade tolerant they are.

[Dbl]

Niiicccceeee!

[Catmendo]

Beauty Steve, good work!

[buzzsaw]

It's just as beautiful here as it is over where I first saw the image! It really makes me want to chase them on those cloudy days. VERY nice! I've noticed your PP clarity is better than ever, whatever your doing, keep doing it!

[Steve Foss]

Thanks guys.

Mike, it's amazing how little pp is actually needed now that I picked up that 100 macro. It's a wicked sharp, sweet lens that I'm using pretty often for people portraits, as well.

Otherwise, my standard pp regimen for sharpness in an isolated subject like this is to lasso the subject and sharpen it individually, then select inverse and run Noise Ninja on the background and a bit of gaussian blur if needed. This one didn't need the blur, so the BG is just NNd.

I can also recommend the inexpensive collapsible diffuser discs from PhotoFlex. They collapse to about the size of a tabletop drink coaster and expand to about a foot across. On sunny days, like it was when I shot this one, I put up a blanket to shade the BG if I want it shaded and then hold the diffusion disc between sun and flower and like magic am rewarded with that gorgeous diffuse bright light! I also have one that's a reflector disk, with gold on one side for warm light reflection and silver on the other for cool light. Sometimes it's nice to be able to fill in those shadows.