Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: aperture

3 more pictures in notes above! :) A few days ago I shared pictures of Ponderosa Pine tree bark. That day I was attracted to the area because I saw pine cones on the ground, and took lots of pictures of them. However, when I saw the pictures on the computer, I realized I made many mistakes, so I studied them with interest to understand what I did wrong. A few days ago, I took more pictures and because I was rushing, I wasn't thinking about the mistakes I made. So, though I did manage to get some nice pictures, I made some of the same mistakes again! :D They say that three time's a charm, so today I took many more pictures. This time I was really paying attention and thinking about what I needed to do differently. I got home and after deleting the garbage pictures, I ended up with lots of presentable keepers! HUZZAH!!! HIP HIP HOORAY! Oh brother! :D This picture corrects my errors of dof that was too shallow or too deep and also ISO too low with blurry results. I have added some texture to the background to bring out the pine cone as well. (You can see my other images as insets above or by viewing the next three pictures!) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and politician. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, and more than 10,000 letters written by him are extant, as are nearly 3,000 drawings. Wikipedia: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Explored on October 18, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

Just take a look at these PRICKLES! Handle these cones carefully or you will come away bleeding! One close look at any pine cone and you will be amazed at their individual beauty. I wanted to share images of these awesome Ponderosa pine cone scales so you can see how awesome and armored they are. Almost like turtle shells with a spike on top! :) (If you would like more information about different pine cones, and to see other pictures, Wiki has a great page here! Wikipedia: Pine Cone If you've done any macro photography, you've learned that the depth of field is a very touchy thing with these specialized lenses. If you get very close to a subject, your dof must be high enough to get the entire area of interest in focus but no higher, because you want the area beyond to fall into blur. I kept using an aperture that was too low for this close-up to include the caps of the scales to be completely in focus. Maddening! I kept getting "near misses" or a touch of blur to ruin the image. But finally, here I've gotten the focus of the scale cap with nice bokeh beyond. Hooray!! :)

This pine cone had a cluster of scales that I wanted to isolate, and I really loved this cone so I worked hard at getting the angle just right for proper focus. I was very happy to find that this image turned out nicely!

Backing off a bit from the previous picture, I was able to isolate these scales so that only they were in focus while everything else fell away into blur. This was tricky to get just right!! Nothing like a good challenge though, and here you go! :)