Pasque Flowers

 The recent cold, dry and windy weather has resulted in quite a lot of damage to the Pasque flowers this year but still a delight to see and photograph. This was our first RPS Nature Group outing since November so good to see Members can still get down to the task in hand. The weather was very cold and windy though the sun did come out later in the morning.Taken with 80mm Fuji Macro (first 6 images, the first three being focus stacks) and with Compact camera (last 4)

Fox Covert Royston

After a recent talk at CCC, I thought I would try using a Gepe slide mount with Anti-Newton glass to diffuse the autumn colours. It worked well although the leaves have not yet turned enough for autumn scenes.

Pasque Flowers Revisited

 I decided to have one more go at the Pasque flowers at Royston as I didn't get quite what I wanted the first time and because this appears to be the best flowering anyone can remember on the heath. The first general view (24mm) shows that many of them have now got quite long stems. Many are going to seed but there are still some groups. I then got in close (100mm macro) to a lovely group of four blooms and shot at f32, f18 and f2.8 - I think I probably prefer the middle setting where the flowers and particularly the hairy stems are in focus.The wide open aperture gives a great pictorial image especially as I have moved round slightly to get a better separation of the blooms and have some side lighting here. The next image of a different foursome uses the 50 mm macro (f22) giving more detail in the background and the last a distant shot with the 100 mm to show just what the hillside looks like.