Frosted Buttercup

I make no apologies for the large number of natural history photos that may appear over the coming months.  When nature is supplying so much to look at then it would be remiss of me not to photograph it and show it, if in somewhat less than its full glory, to anyone who cares to look.

This photo was one I took on my way to work initially as part of a nature notes feature that I write on my other blog. It was a lovely May morning, but there had been a ground frost.  I had wanted a photo of a buttercup to show that they were about and taking over from dandelions in the effort to win most yellow flowers at a roadside.

However, when I opened up the photo in Lightroom I was surprised at the effect the frost had had on the flowers.  They look as thought there are holes in the petals, and, indeed, there is even some frost inside the flower itself.  I am still struggling somewhat with the focus on my new S90, but this time it did well.

I also have a photo of a dandelion on Flickr taken on the same morning (I think) which I am also pleased with, although I have cropped in more to show the detail on that one.

This photo is not perfect – more depth of field would have been good to get the definition sharper on the rear petals, and the background is not as blurred as it would have been with my macro lens, but then, the camera cost less than my macro lens, so I am not complaining.

The settings on the camera (I admit, it is taking me longer to put this camera in any kind of manual mode than it took with my SLR!) were ISO80, 1/125 secs at f/4.0, 6mm.