Bluebells and Bracken

Bluebell Wood (Canon EOS 5D 28-300mm lens at 161 mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec at f/5.6)

Bluebell Flower (Canon EOS 5D 20-35mm lens with 13mm extension tube at 29 mm, ISO 200, f/29 at 1/6 sec, tripod)

I got these shots today while taking a quick visit to the saltmarsh at Kirkton to check a new fence.  This little area of woodland is adjacent to the footpath but not very visible due to a hedge.  I tried various settings on the camera to try and get a good depth of field but I actually really liked this one which obviously has a very shallow depth of field (f/5.6) so only the bluebells in the middle distance are in focus, with those in the foreground and the trees in the background very soft.  I also applied a little post-crop vignetting in Lightroom to darken down the edges a little and draw the focus more to the centre.

Below are a few other shots I got at the same time, one close-up of a Bluebell flower using my 20-35 mm lens with a 13 mm extension tube.  This did not come out as sharp as I had wanted so I tried out Google's Analog Efex Pro to see what some of their vintage camera presets might achieve.  This one works really well I think and covers a multitude of sins in terms of my photographic skills.  The bracken triptych was the result of a series of attempts to get a nice close-up of an unfurled bracken frond.  Unfortunately there was just a bit too much wind so I could not get them to stay still so needed to keep a reasonable shutter speed.

---

Unfurling Bracken Fronds (Canon EOS 5D 28-300mm lens at 300mm, ISO 1600, various aperture/shutter speed settings, tripod)