[Leica] Josha Tree National Park Wildflowers

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Adam Bridge showed & said:
Subject: [Leica] Josha Tree National Park Wildflowers
> On Tuesday we drove back to California from Arizona, taking a route
> through Joshua Tree National Park.
> > The rains this year have created a vast array of wildflowers.
> > <http://www.splitsecondfilms.com/2005/03/15/index.html>

> It was very tricky shooting - quite breezy - even the little ones
> close to the ground were moving. The big ones were just impossible.
> All of these are hand-held. There was no point in a tripod I'm afraid.
> There are a few that are a tad soft but they give the idea of what it
> was like there.<<<<<

Hi Adam,
 May I suggest the next time you run into.....
> It was very tricky shooting - quite breezy - even the little ones
> close to the ground were moving. The big ones were just impossible.
> All of these are hand-held. There was no point in a tripod I'm afraid.
> There are a few that are a tad soft but they give the idea of what it
> was like there.<<<<<

Do not apologize for some un-sharpness under this kind of weather condition 
for the very simple reason.....  ready?

Given the breeze and flower movement heck I'd have taken every opportunity I 
could to "shoot blurred action!" :-) It's like, if you can't stop them, then 
let them blur into beautiful coloured flowers in motion. After all that's 
what they were doing wasn't it? In motion?

I would have shot at various shutter speeds, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15 and up tight to 
fill the frame.  I might have gone real wild and shot some at 1/2 a second 
simply because the potential of beauty in motion is quite amazing sometimes. 
And I'd have shot a ton of them simply because you never know how good 
they'll look until you see them on the light table. :-)

It's sort of thinking and wondering  "how can I make this work for me?" I 
realize most people want to shoot tight stopped action beautiful flowers, 
fair enough.  However, under the circumstance of wind and flower movement 
then make use of that rather than fighting it and becoming frustrated to 
death.

But it does appear you did get some that looked pretty good.

Actually I saw a TV news clip last evening about the flowers this year in 
Death Valley due to the rain and the area looked like a photographer's dream 
for flower beauty.

ted