Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Pink and White Wildflowers

2 Comments

Pink and White Wildflowers
Pink and White Wildflowers. Almaden Quicksilver Park, California. April 26, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Pink and white spring wildflowers photographed at Almaden Quicksilver Park, California.

Once again, a photo shot handheld with the 24-105mm lens. I like to use this photo and some similar ones to respond to folks who are convinced that “the 24-105mm f/4 L IS has bad bokeh.” I’ll admit that it doesn’t always produce great blurred backgrounds, but if you are careful you can actually get some nice bokeh from it. And for handheld wildflower shots its focal length is just about perfect and the image stabilization turns out the be very useful.

I’ve been told that these flowers are “Stachys ajugoides – rigid wood mint,” though after looking around at some online photos of that plant I’m not 100% certain since the leaves don’t seem quite right. Anyone?

keywords: pink, white, flowers, wild, wildflowers, nature, delicate, stem, leaf, green, bokeh, almaden, quicksilver, mines, park, santa clara county, san jose, california, usa, plant, hiking, trail, stock

2 thoughts on “Pink and White Wildflowers”

  1. Thanks for the comment, Rob. It is a beautiful little plant.

    I guess if I had to summarize the “bokeh story” on the 24-105 it might go something like this: Its bokeh is not as great as that from the large aperture primes and it is a bit weaker than some of the other zooms, but it isn’t necessarily all that bad. In a situation where you can really throw the background out of focus – as in these wildflower photographer where the subject is close and the back ground far away – it can produce very nice results. The situations where you might notice the difference include those where the background is a bit less out of focus and there are very bright points of light.

    Dan

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  2. This shot certainly makes a good case for slaying the 24-105L bad bokeh myth. I agree with you that being careful with the background is the first step regardless of which lens is utilized, and doing so can produce acceptable images even with lenses with a so-so reputation in the bokeh arena.

    No idea on the plant – but it beautiful. The subtle curve makes it.

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