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| View toward downtown San Francisco with faded lizard tail flowers sprawled along Grandview Park's fence line. |
My chores done for the day, I walked over to Grandview Park to get a little nature fix. The sky was a mix of sun and low clouds, and it was warm enough to be in shorts and a t-shirt despite a ballcap-stealing wind coming in off the ocean. I brought the FZ80 along just in case something called out to me, and it didn't take long to hear the siren song. Just half-way up the stairs I was struck by a low-slung, probably wind-pruned, female coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) heavily frosted with white seeds.
After that I was on the lookout for other potential subjects and snapped some photos of lizard tail (Eriophyllum staechadifolium) and coast goldenrod (Solidago spathulata). The goldenrod had numerous west coast lady butterflies (Vanessa annabella) and common drone flies (Eristalis tenax), as well as bumblebees (moving too fast for me to get a decent photo), feasting on its nectar.
Looking out toward the bay I saw a container ship, the CMA CGM Hermes, which I thought was kind of a cool name since just yesterday I saw an excellent play narrated by Hermes, called Hadestown.
After shooting the plants and insects with the FZ80 I still felt like doing more photography, so I collected a smidgen of plant material to try some 1:1 macro photography back at home. The focus stacks ran from 21 frames to 38 frames, so I could never have done them in the field with all that wind (not to mention all the people and dogs). Even at home I had to contend with changing window light due to the mix of sun and clouds, but now that I've got my indoor set-up pretty dialed in, I'd like to do more 1:1 stuff. It's always interesting to see details with the camera that my naked eye couldn't make out.
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| Coyote Brush Frosted with Seeds |
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| A Maltese-flagged container ship, recently by way of Thailand, Vietnam, China (and Los Angeles), brings its cargo to the Port of Oakland. |
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| West Coast Lady #1 |
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| Common Drone Fly #1 |
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| West Coast Lady #2 |
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| Common Drone Fly #2 |
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| These are the subjects in the macro photos below. |
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| Coast Goldenrod |
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| Lizard Tail |
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| Coyote Brush #1 |
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| Coyote Brush #2 |
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| Coast Buckwheat Gone to Seed |
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