Chamaebatiaria millefolium [Fern Bush]

[Andrea B.]

Blum, A.G. (2021) Chamaebatiaria millefolium (Torr.) Maxim. (Rosaceae) Fernbush. Flowers photographed in ultraviolet, infrared and visible light. LINK

 

La Secuela, El Dorado at Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

11 August 2021

Wild Shrub

 

Other Common Names:

Desert Sweet

 

Comment:

The leaves are highly divided and very fern like. It is often grown as an ornamental shrub in the US Southwest. In UV light the petals are somewhat UV-reflective with a UV-absorbing base not easily seen due to the crowd of UV-reflective stamens filling the cup-like flower around the central stigmas.

 

References:

1. SEINet Arizona-New Mexico Chapter (acc 22 Mar 2021) Chamaebatiaria millefolium.

This is a southwestern biodiversity organization making use of the Symbiota portal software.

 

 

Equipment [Nikon D610-broadband + Nikon 105mm f/4.5 UV-Nikkor]

 

Visible Light [f/11 for 1/3" @ ISO-100 under Skylight with Kolari UVIR-Cut Filter]

 

 

 

Ultraviolet Light [f/11 for 15" @ ISO-400 with SB-140 UV-Flash and BaaderU UV-Pass Filter]

^{3 flashes were made during the 15" second interval.}

 

 

Detail [unresized crop from preceding photo]

 

 

UV+Blue+Green [f/16 for 30" @ ISO-800 under Skylight with U330(2.0mm) + S8612(2.0mm)]

 

 

 

 

Infrared Light [f/22 for 1/2" @ ISO-100 with Onboard Flash and B+W 092 IR-Pass Filter]

 

 

[colinbm]

Wow, a stunning flower.

[Bill De Jager]

Wow.

 

This is a really cool shrub.  Here in California it's little known since it only occurs in the high elevations of a few desert ranges.  I noticed it in floras decades ago and finally had a chance to grow it.  It did well in my (too small) garden until it got shaded out by growing trees beyond the fence.  My entire Great Basin garden corner is now gone, sad to say.

[Kai]

... and once again you present a series of very impressive images, Andrea!
Thanks very much :)

I have a technical question about the VIS-UV image pair (both f11):
Did you focus on different spots or is the depth of field dependent on the focal length in this case?

[Andrea B.]

Thank you, Kai.

 

I reset focus whenever I change a filter. So it is entirely possible that I did not re-focus on the same flower on the flower stalk.

For the UV and Vis photos above, I did not focus on exactly the same spot.

 

For the same aperture, UV will always have deeper depth of field than Vis and Vis will always have deeper depth of field than IR. (But I'm sure you know that. ) So that might be what you are noticing??

 

I should go grab a full size sample from the UV and IR frames to illustrate that DOF thing for educational purposes for those new to UV/IR.

 

Unresized crop from Vis photo, as shot, f/11. I was focusing to the right of this flower. Clearly focus is slightly in front of this particular flower. But we just want to look at DOF here.

 

 

 

Unresized crop from UV photo, as shot, f/11. There is much more detail in the background flower on the left.

 

 

 

Here is the Visible flower in focus - cropped from another frame.

 

[Kai]

11 minutes ago, Andrea B. said:

Thank you, Kai.

 

I reset focus whenever I change a filter. So it is entirely possible that I did not re-focus on the same flower on the flower stalk.

 

For the same aperture, UV will always have deeper depth of field and IR will always have shallower depth of field. But I'm sure you know that. 

 

I should go grab a full size sample from the UV and IR frames to illustrate that. BRB.

 

PHOTOS GO HERE.

In fact, I haven't felt the effect that strongly before!
Impressive :)