Vegetation

The vegetable kingdom is a fantastic subject for photography. An endless variety of shapes, colours, sizes and textures delight the eye and the lens. Everyone's favourite shots are flowers of course, and I have allocated them their own gallery, this gallery is for everything else: The trees, grasses and shrubs, the leaves, bark, seeds and fruits, and the plant as a whole. I have also included fungi and lichen here although strictly speaking they belong in their own kingdom.

Vegetables are generally simple to photograph since they are generally a convenient size and they can't run. They do however move in the wind which does make things difficult and they are the only subjects that are universally disrupted in this manner. (There are of course specialised exceptions). Photographic problems when dealing with vegetables are normally matters of getting the light right, getting the framing right and locking focus.

Setting correct focus is not generally a problem with contrast detect auto focus units such as you find in compact digicams but the less intelligent SIR focal sensors found in SLRs can often baulk at the low contrast target offered by tree foliage. If your camera exhibits this problem you can try some work-arounds like manual focus or referring focus from a better focal target at the same distance. Neither of these kludges are very satisfactory I'm afraid but that's the sad reality.

If you like my pictures, make sure you look at the full image and zoom right in. I make sure that my shots are sharp to the pixel. In a sense this is the only truly accurate way to see them. When you condense the image to fit the screen, the pixels are interpolated and although this is generally fine yet something is lost, (especially if your image viewer is using a quick and nasty algorithm). It is only at 1:1 that you see what the camera saw.

THUMBNAIL (click to view 1200px image)	PARAMETERS	COMMENTS
	Canon A610 11mm (52mm) f/4 1/100 sec ISO Auto Full Auto	"Zucchini" (Portland, 2006) I took this shot the day I got the A610 and I couldn't fault it, ... still can't as a matter of fact. Sure it's an easy shot in full auto but the result is there!
	Canon A610 15mm (72mm) f/4 1/100 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Mallee Resprout" (Portland, 2006) There is something very special about the colour of newly sprouted gum leaves, perhaps it is extra red in the green? Anyway I saw this shot of the green flush of regrowth amongst the pale grey of the old stumps and pressed the trigger.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/2.8 1/50 sec ISO Auto P Mode Macro	"Bush Salad" (Nelson Bay, 2006) Australian & New Zealand Spinach is a salt bush that loves to climb. In this case the stump of a Coastal Beard Heath. I just love that shade of green. You need to zoom in a little to see it clearly.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/2.8 1/25 sec ISO Auto P Mode 1 sec delay	"Sword Sedge" (Cape Nelson, 2006) The shade was deep in this little section of the Enchanted Forest. I love deep shade and the deep green of the plants that grow there so I took this shot. I used the 1 second delay with longer exposures to remove shutter press blur.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/400 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Bunya Bunya Pine" (Portland, 2006) Portland Botanical Gardens boast a number of fine specimens, amongst them this prime exemplar of Araucaria bidwillii, the Bunya Bunya Pine. that prickly foliage is quite unique.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/2.8 1/1250 sec ISO Auto A Mode Macro	"Phalaris Seedhead" (Portland, 2006) I was walking past the secondary college when I saw a patch of Phalaris grass with ripe seedheads. I wondered how they would look in macro mode. No sooner thought than done! I really nailed the DOF on this one, thanks to the bright sun. Fault it if you can.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/2.8 1/160 sec ISO Auto A Mode Macro	"Bracken" (Portland, 2006) At full aperture, close up in macro mode the DOF is very narrow, as you can see here where the middle of the leaf is perfectly in focus and the front and back are slightly out. I find this picture very satisfying because it captures the deep green peace of fern in the shade.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/3.2 1/125 sec ISO Auto A Mode Macro	"Sheoak Fruit" (Portland, 2006) Sheoak cones line up along the branches of the female tree and I wanted to capture a close up of the fruit in this natural environment. The focus is sharp for the front of the branch and tails off from the back of the subject in a pleasing way. The magnification of the fruit also enables one to see the red in it that is normally difficult to detect.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/1000 sec ISO Auto P Mode Macro	"Quaking Grass" (Portland, 2006) I wanted to capture the fine detail of the little bells of the quaking grass seed heads. If you take it from too far away you entirely miss the charm. The sun was bright, and no wind, so the shot was easy. I just had to back off one stop from max aperture so that most of the bells could be in focus.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/500 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Lookout Sheoaks" (Portland, 2006) The Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticulata) is a distinctive and attractive tree that reminds me of the trees in Dr Seuss' books. Here a clump of them grow at a lookout on Bill's Walk.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/160 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Manna From Heaven" (Portland, 2006) I find most gum trees to be beautiful and thus a natural subject for the camera. All too often however the picture doesn't do justice to the original. This one was an exception. The contrast of the pale grey of the Manna Gum bark with its surrounds and the various textures make this picture work for me.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/125 sec ISO Auto P Mode Macro	"Echeveria" (Portland, 2006) I was just walking along a street when I saw a row of these succulents. I didn't want quite such a narrow DOF in this one so I let the camera choose its favorite aperture. The cactus is perfectly in focus and the white stones complete a pleasing image.
	Canon A610 13mm (60mm) f/4 1/125 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Windblown Moonahs" (Cape Nelson, 2006) The Portland peninsula protrudes out into the Southern Ocean and we are subject to strong salty winds on a regular basis. Only a few plants are able to withstand the brunt of this salty blast. The Moonah (Melaleuca lanceolata) is one of them. The Moonah can grow in this environment but nevertheless the wind takes its toll. The branches are stripped bare on the windward side and eventually the tree dies.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/3.2 1/80 sec ISO Auto A Mode Macro	"Pine Cones" (Portland, 2006) These young pine cones are an unusual colour for Portland and they made an obvious subject set against the darker green of the needles. Because of their relative size I didn't need to have the camera so close and the DOF was much greater, enabling all the subject to be in focus.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/640 sec ISO Auto Full Auto	"Burnt Tree - Grey Sky" (My Eccles, 2006) I was up at McEccles some 6 months after terrible bushfires had ravaged the area. It was a grey and wet day and I saw this dead tree out in the paddock, silhouetted against the sky. No mistaking the shot.
	Canon A610 15mm (72mm) f/4 1/500 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Grampians Regrowth after Fire" (Grampians NP, 2006) The Grampians National Park had also been ravaged by bushfires and I went up some months later to see the regrowth. Every 2 square metres there was a grass tree in flower! Amazing! You can work out from that how many grass trees there are in the Grampians. Millions. Normally they flower only rarely and they are often shaded out by trees. After a fire the competition is gone however and they ALL flower.
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/4 1/640 sec ISO Auto P Mode	"Xanthorrhoea Australis from above" (Grampians NP, 2006) I love the texture of the Grass Tree. The thin, square-section leaves are like nothing else and they spiral out radially from the trunk in a similarly unique way. Absolutely Australian!
	Canon A610 7mm (35mm) f/3.5 1/160 sec ISO Auto P Mode -1eV	"Pale Fungus" (Cobboboonnee Forest, 2007) I went to the Forest in autumn specifically to find and photograph fungi and that is what I did. This was my favourite shot from that day. It captures the pale fruiting body erupting from the fertile leaf mould at the base of the tree. I had to knock the exposure back to stop the white being blown out. I then boosted the shadows in PP.
	Canon A610 29mm (140mm) f/4.1 1/60 sec ISO Auto P Mode Manual Focus	"Browntop Fungus" (Nigretta Falls, 2007) This fungal shot is technically even better as I didn't need to knock back the exposure and reboost later. Remember the A610 has no RAW mode so there isn't the dynamic headroom you get from 12 bit data, you lose something in the process. Incidentally, I had considerable trouble putting the focus where I wanted it in this shot as the camera kept locking on the grass. I was about to give up when I thought of trying manual focus. To my amazement it worked! I succeeded in capturing the reflective gloss on the front of the cap which just makes the shot for me.
	Canon 400D Tamron 70-300 70mm (112mm) f/5.6 1/350 sec ISO 400 A Mode	"Water Lillies" (Hamilton, 2008) I was in Hamilton photographing water birds when I happened upon these water lillies in the Botanical Gardens. This unexpected shot was as good or better than the bird shots I took. An unexpected bonus!
	Canon 400D Tamron 70-300 238mm (380mm) f/8 1/500 sec ISO 400 A Mode	"Briar Hips" (Portland, 2008) One of the last shots I took with this Tamron lens. By using the macro mode I got a very narrow DoF that isolated the subject effectively. Then there is the contrast of the bright red of the hips against the OoF tan background.
	Nikon D60 Nikon 18-55 VR 55mm (83mm) f/8 1/50 sec ISO 400 A Mode	"Lichen on a Log" (Nun's Bush, 2008) Just a piece of lichen growing on a log in the forest dude! Check out the image quality here though. The D60 and its VR kit lens must be one of the bargains of all time!
	Nikon D60 Nikon 18-55 VR 55mm (83mm) f/8 1/640 sec ISO 400 A Mode	"Willow Mytle Fruit" (Portland, 2008) Another stunning image from this bargain combination. On this day it felt like I got a winner every time I pressed the shutter!
	Nikon D60 Nikon 18-55 VR 55mm (83mm) f/8 1/125 sec ISO 200 A Mode	"Mirror Bush Foliage" (Portland, 2008) Man this shot is just so GREEN! It's a study in GREEN!
	Nikon D60 Nikon 18-55 VR 18mm (86mm) f/8 1/60 sec ISO 200 A Mode	"Blue Spruces Meet" (Portland, 2008) The blue sky and the grey blue/green of two intertwining Blue Spruces, who could resist that? All you need is an artist's eye!
	Nikon D60 Nikon 18-55 VR 42mm (63mm) f/11 1/160 sec ISO 200 A Mode	"Bidjiwidji Burr" (Portland, 2009) This native ground cover is the bane of long haired pets as the barbed seeds penetrate into the hair but don't so easily come out. If you zoom in on the full size image you can clearly see the individual barbs on the seed heads. That is superb sharpness!