In May of 2021, when we were still under Covid-19 restrictions I, noticed a ripening cone at about eye level in peeking dawn sunlight on a young evergreen in my yard. I had a Nikon F3HP my wife gave me in 1985 and a roll of Velvia 100 in the refrigerator. I put a 105mm Nikkor f2.5 lens on the camera with an extension tube and mounted it on a tripod.
Decent depth of field required F11 or smaller, which dictated shutter speeds slower than 1/30 second. The morning breezes were shaking the tree limbs and the close shot with a trembling subject and slow shutter speed made me cautious. The light only lasted a few minutes before the angle of the sun changed, losing the effect.
I had to wait for a break in the breeze and the trembling to stop before tripping the shutter. The wind was capricious, and I had no confidence in the result, never knowing if the quivering had resumed mid-exposure. I repeated the process on several successive mornings hoping for a decent frame. My wife was wondering why I was dragging the camera into the yard every morning to take the same photo.
Out of the 18 exposures made over those three days, this was the keeper. Some GIMP cropping with adjustments for saturation, contrast, and dust removal yielded this image, which now graces the lock screen on my phone.
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