neo. nishidemiyako

[Marco]

Last one blooming out of season. A variegated variety with normal white blooms. I find it difficult to get a good focused photo of the blooms and actual plant.

I typically use a manual 55MM macro lense. Maybe I'm using the wrong lense? Suggestions are more than welcome!

Thanks

nishidemiyako (西出都) 01 - 01.03.15 by Marco, on Flickr

nishidemiyako (西出都) 01 - 01.05.15 by Marco, on Flickr

 

[abax]

I think they're very nice photos. The depth of field might
be a bit different from focus on the leaves to focus on the
flowers.

 

[Jaljala]

If you want to have all flowers en leaves in focus, you will need a depth of field greater than f:11, but you will need way more light! I find you photographs very good and don't need really much more DOF.
On the first picture for example, if you were to use f:11, you should aim the focus at the top leaf just under the spike, that way the spike and the front fans would be in focus. If you focus on the front of the plant, the spike may already be out of focus because the DOF zone is half forward / half backward of the focusing point (dont know if this is clear, excuse my poor technical english...).

Very nice and healthy plant by the way!

 

[Marco]

Jal - Thanks. Your explanation is absolutely clear.

Someone else had suggested to raise the f-stop to 16 and encouraged the use of a tripod if I cannot provide ample light and decide drop the shutter speed.

I will try giving this a go within the next couple of days.

 

[Clark]

I live at f/22

 

[SlipperFan]

Jal - Thanks. Your explanation is absolutely clear.

Someone else had suggested to raise the f-stop to 16 and encouraged the use of a tripod if I cannot provide ample light and decide drop the shutter speed.

I will try giving this a go within the next couple of days.

A tripod should help a lot. I will allow you to use a slower shutter speed in lower light, and therefore greater d/f possibility.

 

[naoki]

Or, time to upgrade? Nikon D5, announced a couple days ago, has crazy ISO. So you can close down aperture in dim light. It's kind of revival of D3. Dot's suggestion is more reasonable, though!

Actually, your photo with out of focus looks nice.

Clark is probably using full-size, so he can close down more, but for me (micro 4/3), I can notice less sharp images above f/11 due to diffraction. Here is a related info: http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/diffraction.html

Pretty soon, cameras probably will have on-camera focus stacking (Olympus E-M1 can do it already).

If you use phone camera (or point and shoot), you can get deep depth of focus, too.

I like this variety, too. It looks like the top leaf of the front growth is getting "naka-suke" (middle part is white).

 

[Justin]

Is the name higashidemiyako or is that a different cultivar? Beautiful either way.

 

[cnycharles]

Not bad pictures and nice plant/flower. An alternative to the tripod (being the best idea all around plus getting a shutter release) is to use the same settings, move back slightly and focus a bit more towards the flowers, and then crop the image a bit in the computer. When moving back and then focusing more forwards your depth of field will lengthen. Too much stopping down can increase distortion and each lens has its sweet spot but if lots of stopping down is necessary then you have a shot

I've been told and read/used the thought-image that when setting up your depth of field focusing line, it's best to expect that the depth of in focus field will appear to start one-third in front of that point/plane and two-thirds behind. I'm not sure if it's mathematically correct but just a helpful tool, but you see more of what's 'in front' and this way can help avoid pics with parts out of focus right up where you can see them. Also you've aligned the plant in your picture so that its mass as a rectangle is thinnest to the lens, so you don't need as large a depth field focus to get it all clearly. ... meaning if you turned it 90* then you'd have a whole lot of leaves in front and behind the flowers to need to include in an enlarged focus field

 

[MattWoelfsen]

Is the name higashidemiyako or is that a different cultivar? Beautiful either way.

This is Nishidemiyako pictured here. Higashidemiyako is a totally different plant.

 

[naoki]

Justin, both Nishidemiyako and Higashidemiyako were found from Kyoto region, and they are old varieties. "Nishi" is west, "Higashi" is east. "de" means exit, and "miyako" means the capital (it was Kyoto before Tokyo). There are lots of varieties derived from Nishidemiyako (and some from Higashidemiyako), but from what I gathered, Higashidemiyako (which was called Miyako-fukurin originally) is an independent origin as Matt said.

Nishidemiyako looks like white fukurin (i.e. the outside of the leaves is white and inside is green). But some people say that it is actually Sankou-nakafu (from outside to inside: green-white-green), with the outside green usually not visible (here is an illustration):
http://www.geocities.jp/neofine9/gei/sankou1.gif

So they say that this could be the reason why you occasionally see "nakasuke" (green outside, white inside) leaves coming out from Nishidemiyako. Basically the middle green of sankou-nakafu becomes invisible. One leaf of Marco's might be showing this. If this fixes, it becomes Manazuru, and it might goes to complete white -> death of the growth if separated. I think Tom was talking about this.

Well, this could be too much detail. I might sound like I know what I'm talking about, but I don't know much about Neo. This is just what I found from web search in Japanese last year, so I don't know if it is true or not.

 

[MattWoelfsen]

That is a very good description Naoki! Thanks.

 

[Marco]

Naoki - Thanks I love hearing the stories behind the varietal names.

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Nice plant Matt. The variegation is nicely varied (am I being redundant? :rollhappy in that one. I have two plants of this variety, one with pretty rock steady "fukurin" variegation, and the other a normal plant with a growth with reversed variegation - a would be Manazuru. I don't think I'll ever separate it from the main plant though. My favorite variation on this form is Tamanishiki - basically a really dwarf growing form with the same varied variegation patterns.

Naoki, well, you can't get a lot more detailed than that. Some might accuse overkill

 

[Marco]

Justin - For comparison, here is a photo of my higashidemiyako.

I will admit I don't really have a keen eye to identify the finer differences between varieties. However, comparing my nishi vs. higashi. The nishi seems to be more variable than the higashi which more consistent in variegation.

Higashidemiyako 01 - 01.09.16 by Marco, on Flickr

Tom - Thanks. A stripped variegated dwarf or bean leaf is next on my list. They are just a tough and expensive find.