Photo of the Week 88 – A Common Spotted Orchid

A few weeks ago I chose my favourite butterfly shot of the year, this week I’m choosing my favourite wild flower shot of the year. This was a really hard choice because I really got to grips with my Nikkor 55-200mm zoom lens this year, so there were a lot of decent flower shots to choose from. However, in the end, this shot won, in no small part because of how pretty a flower it is! I just love wild Orchids, and always have. When you stumble across one you feel like you’ve found a little treasure! In this case the Orchid is a Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). I’m not sure the name really suits the flower, ‘common’ implies abundant to me, and that doesn’t seem to tally with reality.

I managed to find a marshy field with quite a few of these beauties near Leixlip Louisa Bridge train station, and after much searching I found one that was blemish-free and standing out on its own enough to get a nice soft un-cluttered bokeh. The light was also pretty much perfect as I shot it in the early evening.

What I really love about this shot is that I had almost noting to do in post – it came out of the camera almost exactly like this! I Just did a few very minor tweaks in Aperture to get the crop just as I wanted it, and to pop the colour and the contrast just a little bit.

on Flickr – Full-Size

Camera: Nikon D40

Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm

Exposure: 1/640 sec

Focal Length: 200mm

Focal Ratio: f/11

ISO: 400

Camera Mode: Aperture Priority

Exposure Bias: -0.3ev