Hi Les and fellow Zuiks,
Not much opium (if any) to be had from those ones. It's not illegal to grow
opium poppies in a garden in NZ as far as I know, and they are a magnificent
garden flower. They *used* to be moderately often seen in house flower
gardens, but home-owners soon found that if they were grown within public
sight, wandering idiots would harvest them. Which as I understand it is not
the way to get the plant sap needed .. ... ...
The thing that gets me about these particular poppies is their delicate papery
petals and the way the colours grade from one area to another. To my eyes
they are just beautiful.
The pity is that they last about a day before falling to bits (opium poppy
flowers last OK for days - they are robust) or less if it's hot. So if you want
to
capture them on film you pray for little / no wind, and get shooting when the
light is right.
The 100? Note that one shot is hand-held and is pretty sharp; (these are all
scanned from prints) others taken that week were just not good. I know that
the DOF for a stated focal length is supposed to be the same for all 35mm
format lenses of the same focal length, but I have the feeling that this lens
has a particularly shallow DOF. So I'm practicing with it to understand it -
it's
a challenge.
> I certainly enjoyed, and share your discomfort with the 100mm, f/2.0 for
> the same reasons.
>
> As a matter of curiosity -- and not because I expect it to be a little
> extra on the side for a naturalist's income [grin] -- what is one
> obliged to do when one finds poppies growing wild in one's garden? After
> seeing Traffik, I would expect the gendarmes to descend in packs to
> obliterate the garden and swoop one off to gaol. How common is it to
> find poppies growing wild in NZ, anyway?
> - ---------------------------------------------
> les clark / edgewater, nj / usa
> - ---------------------------------------------
Brian
...................................................
Zuikoholics, enablers, one and all.
Feeding fantasies, emptying pockets!
---------------------------------------------------
Brian Swale, 140 Panorama Road,
Christchurch 8008, N.Z.
Tel +64 3 326 7447
http://homepages.caverock.net.nz/~bj/photography/
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