Wednesday, we had occasion to be in Vallejo at 6pm. Driving up at that time on a weekday, involves awful commute traffic
- and - they are doing roadwork. Looking around on the map, I found a park I'd never been to, the Benicia State
Recreation Area. so we left early encountered less traffic slowdown than anticipated, and spent a couple of very
pleasant hours there. We went wandering in the Forrest Deaner Native Plant Botanic Garden. It isn't much larger than its
name, the peak flower season is past there and we have a much larger native plant BG very close to home. But with the
different climate, they had nicer specimens of some flora and some beautiful flowers.
I took the opportunity to try a bunch of hand held focus stacks using the Nikon 5T C-U lens on PLeica 100-400 lens, and
that's mostly what's in this little gallery.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=SFBayArea/Forrest%20Deaner%20Native%20Plant%20Botanic%20Garden>
Also a Northern Mockingbird displaying and a maple seed that looks like a
flying creature with eyes.
It was an interesting exercise. There was a breeze blowing, not steady, so getting some subjects in the frame and in
focus at the same time wasn't always easy. But that's what I was trying out, how practical casual focus stacking is in
the field. the E-M5 II does have built-in focus bracketing, as they call it, but I didn't think it would work with the
often, and unexpectedly, dancing subjects.
The two not so close images are only two shots each, but it makes a big difference in the DoF. A couple of two shot only
C-Us also came out rather well. With such a long FL and close focus, the background is nicely soft, with rather
attractive bokeh, even at f11, so I only needed a couple of shots for
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=SFBayArea/Forrest%20Deaner%20Native%20Plant%20Botanic%20Garden&image=_A004945-46oofm.jpg>
and this
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=SFBayArea/Forrest%20Deaner%20Native%20Plant%20Botanic%20Garden&image=_A004943-44croof70.jpg>
The vagaries of wind had hand holding at high magnifications led to some oddities. I didn't get the shots focally spaced
well for this one, so there is something like a Plane of Unfocus part way back.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=SFBayArea/Forrest%20Deaner%20Native%20Plant%20Botanic%20Garden&image=_A004934-37croofm.jpg>
Stacking Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
|
