Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Yaupon Holly

I thought by now you're all getting sick of my birds, so I'd post something a little more in season.

This is Yaupon Holly. Although the leaves don't have the traditional points that you'd expect to see, it is definitely in the Holly family. It's also one of the more seasonal-looking plants that one would find in nature. I found this during my meetup at Lake Seminole last Sunday. The bush was pretty full, so I got under the branch and shot up at the sky. This way, it eliminated the busy background, and it helped to make the plant stand out more. Yaupon Holly can be found in Florida growing in upland woods, streamsides, pondsides, dunes and pine flatwoods.

Settings used for this shot were, Aperture priority, with partial metering on the plant, ISO 400, 1/80th @ F5.6, -1/3 exposure compensation. I chose ISO 400 because it was very cloudy and their wasn't much light as you can tell by the settings used. The -1/3 exposure compensation was to keep the sky from blowing out.

This is another shot with a loss due to jpg compression for the site. This is much brighter not compressed.

4 comments:

Jim S said...

Nice seasonal image. The tree and the background look vaguely familiar, is this at the botanical gardens next to Heritage Village?

Unknown said...

Thank you, Jim. This was shot at Seminole Lake Park.

Mango said...

What a coincidence! I tried to shoot this holly stuff the other day! I didn't know what it was but I liked it a lot. the shot didn't come out well because didn't use your get-under-the-branch technique! I'll try again!

Unknown said...

That's too funny, Margo. Try it again and post it to your blog. I'd love to see it.