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Sunday, March 15, 2009
First Blooms of Spring
The snow is mostly gone (at least for the moment), and the first signs of Spring are at hand.
Click images to enlarge.
As usual, the crocuses (Crocus longiflorus)
got there first. Developing patiently beneath the snow pack, they burst into bloom shortly after its melting exposes the buds to the direct Sun. This has been a hard winter, and the way to bet is that they're going to be buried under one or more big snowfalls before Old Man Winter finally yields the field, but at least for moment it's a welcome change from months of a pure white landscape.
The top photo was taken with an ALPA SWA 12 camera with a Schneider 72 mm Apo-Digitar lens and Leaf Aptus 75 digital back. Exposure was 1/2 second at f/32 with ISO 100 sensitivity. The close-up at bottom was taken with a Nikon D300 camera and forty-year-old Micro-Nikkor 55 mm macro lens on a Nikon PK-12 extension tube. Exposure was 1/15 second and f/32 at ISO 640; I used the high sensitivity since the close-ups were taken handheld and the flowers were moving slightly in the breeze, so obtaining the required depth of field while avoiding blur required accepting a bit more noise due to the high ISO setting.
Posted at
20:32
