Macrophotography ~ Northern Starflower
(All photos taken by @paradigm42)
I spend a lot of time on nature trails once spring arrives. I love seeing everything become green again and the myriad of spring wildflowers blooming. Over the last year thanks to my interest in macrophotography, my eyes have been opened to the small, delicate beauty of the low lying flowers of the forest floor. The Northern Starflower is a lovely example of such a flower.
The Northern Starflower is a member of the primrose family and a perennial flower that starts to bloom in mid to late spring. In higher elevations it can bloom into early summer.
This lovely little woodland wildflower is native to the northeast, but can also be found in the Midwest and the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. It prefers partially shaded areas of moist soil, however can be found in a variety of soil types and woodland areas.
Around midsummer the flowers and plant go dormant leaving behind a ripening seed pod. The seeds will be dispersed generally by insects and need to experience a period of cold winter temperatures before they will germinate the next spring season.
The Northern Starflower is not edible, nor does it have any known medicinal uses. This pretty wildflower does provide our most important pollinators bees with nectar and pollen, as well as add a lovely element of beauty to the forest floor.
I hope you have enjoyed this look at one of natures hidden gems.
Flower classification was found here:
https://www.wildflowersearch.org/search?
Information about this wildflower was found here:
http://www.adirondackvic.org/Starflower -- Trientalis borealis.htm
As always remember that it is all about the little things in life! Thanks for looking in! :)
Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!
Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
Manually curated by @macchiata.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate this. Thank you! :)
What kind of lense do you take to shoot this picture?
Admittedly I just use a 15x magnification macro lens for my cellphone camera. I have to get real up close and personal to get a good shot lol.. I want to invest in a good digital camera with the ability use different types of lens but do not even know where to start. I truly enjoy photography especially macrophotography and would definitely like to expand my skills. I am very much still an amateur though, and am on a learning curve gaining knowledge and experience as I go.
a piece of advice -- buy any seconhanded DSLR camera, they can be comically cheap! Pentax or Sony may give you little benefits in the long run (imo). I stick to Canon and to my lense park i've already got, otherwise i'd change it... if you're not limited - buy modern mirrorless Sony or Fuji camera with changeable optics.
when you have a camera, buy a 50-mm lens - there are very cheap, too. It can be your everyday universal lens. I cant talk for other systems, but Canon 50mm 1.8 is very, very cheap. also, having a DSLR camera, you are open to use a very big park of pre-digital lens, they will not have autofocus (i.e. you have to focus manually) but they are cheap! well, some of them. in comparison with modern AF models, they are really a bargain.
so, you will get fun already on this stage.
if you're not going to restrict yourself to macro, using 50 mm lens and taling shots of various stuff will show you what you like to shoot most - and what lens (i.e. typical focus ) you will need to have in your arsenal... getting a lens park is a long venture, that can be a lot of fun (and a lot of investements, hehe)
next is getting lens for macro. 1st thing to know - the closer you can get to it, the bigger will be the shot :) you know that already. 2ndly: you dont need auto-focus for shooting macro, 99% of time you better go manual. so, assume you dont need expensive AF lens (which are better), but you can go with old, outdated, but still great manual. soviet lens 'Industar' (a replica foof german Zeiss Tessar) is a good and not very expensive macro lens, for example.. there is a lot of self-made macro lenses out there. you will just need to choose :) I have two AF lenses in my pocket, 60-mm Tamron and 150-mm Sigma (I use them on different cameras). If you can spend a bit more on this, I'd recommend you Sigma 105-mm AF - there are Nikon and Canon versions, and probably more; my friends on steem are getting great results with the Nikon version. If you can invest into it like crazy, and your girlfriend/wife will support you -- then, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM is a killer. I tested it and fall in love. but it was completely out of my budget.
i dont recommend you getting anything more than 105-mm lens. its not handy, you will need tripod with it... mostly impossible to get decent results.
will be more questions - ask.. @macchiata, i'd appreciate some piece-of-cake curation too.. recently I'm shooting dandellions, thru the summer will be doing more macros, like this.. you may keep an eye on me?
Thank you so very much for all of this information, I greatly appreciate it!! I will definitely follow up on it all. I'm very grateful to now have a starting point for moving forward with my interest in photography. :)
merci! glad if this was helpful...
actually, using smarties is cool, cheap, fast, easy... can give you good results at times (when good lightning)... you shouldnt ditch it into the gutter... but its not art of photography, its kinda an art
of fast-foodof getting result xDits all very pricey... especially lenses... eapecially good ones! so I really advise you - choose a system, get a 2-handed DSLR camera for cheap, get a good (the cheapest or a bitbetter level) 50-mm which is pretty universal - and then, shoot, shoot, shoot, have fun, and make out some priorities for yourself! you will see if its a fun for you and worth investing into more serious stuff.. smth like that!
ps. may I suggest to share with you a link to some smartphone photos?.. just so that you have a starting point for comparison.
I agree that good shots can be taken with a smartphone (It's all I've had to work with for a while now lol), but like you said it isn't truely the art of photography as I inspire to. I'm definitely ready to start learning how to work with real a camera setup which is why I really appreciate all the info. Please do post a link of photos for me to look at if you want, I always appreciate looking at other people's work to learn from and gain inspiration.
I don't have a huge amount of money to spend on equipment, but I can afford to spent some and get the basics of what you suggest to start. Lucky for me my boyfriend (I am female) does support me in my interest and actually surprised me one day with the set of lens I have for my cellphone that I've been using. I'm definitely looking forward to doing some camera and lens shopping in the near future so thanks again! :)
Whooa! that's a dedication right there ! Good luck with your endeavor and keep sharing your progress on steemit! :)
Thank you, I definitely plan on it! :)
Beautiful little flower story :) I like the pictures too, small wildflowers have such elegant shapes and the fact that they are small and you must take an effort and have some concentration to observe these little things only adds to the experience of discovering such details ... is always a bit like some kind of adventure in the land of miniatures
Thank you very much! I could not have decribed the experience of discovering the beauty of these tiny wildflowers better than you just did. That is why I always enjoy your posts and wonderful macrophotography. :)