At the end of a rocky dirt road, just before it bumps into the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, Shenk's Ferry Wildflower Preserve hides on the banks of Grubb Run. Every year, Virginia bluebells, trilliums, lillies, may apples and jack in the pulpits cover the hill side. According to owner PPL, 73 species of flowers bloom here.
A flat one-mile walk takes visitors through the area, ending at a tunnel. It's amazing how much visitors can miss on the way into the woods that they see on the way back.
To see PPL's brochure, click here.
Trillium and may apple photo taken with 17-55 2.8 lens, 1/40 second, f22, 400 ISO. Ring flash placed on ground beneath the plants.
Jack in the pulpit shot with 17-55 with extension tube, handheld ring flash, 1/15 second at f22, 400 ISO.
I was there this past weekend, nothing like I expected and I had the wrong lens for the job. I need to either get a proper macro lens or an extension tube for my 50mm f/1.8. Only a few of my shots came out "OK." Never thought about using a ring flash I did see people with reflectors though.
I will say, the Nikon 105VR is really sweet, but slow to focus. My friend's shots came out much better. Take a look at some of her photos with the 105VR from that day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27333809@N05/
They are the most recent ones.
This 105mm lens is so old the serial number is 2. I don't use the autofocus at all for macro, only for long telephoto shots. And to think about it, we're shooting static flowers here, so a slow-focusing auto lens isn't really a problem, is it?
True. It's also the small minimum focus distance thing that has macro lenses better suited to this place. At least that's my opinion for the moment. :)
Sure is nice to get out and "explore" the countryside huh. We have all of the mentioned wildflowers in our backyard garden---except the May apples. We did--but they very quickly took everything over and they had to be removed. That's why Mother Nature plants them in the woods. Lesson learned!