Maple Leaf
I took these pictures 2 or 3 weeks ago when we took some of our apples out to Oldfield Valley to get them juiced. The owner of this row of trees tells me these leaves are from sugar maples. Not having seen a sugar maple that I can remember, I will take his word for it.
I was drawn to the colours, especially the underside of the leaves. And, of course, the water drops.
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To open the gallery below click on any thumbnail, navigate with the arrows and escape to return to this page.
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- 11 some cropping
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- 10 moderate crop
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- 9 tight crop
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- 8 very heavy crop
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- 7
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- 6 suspended in plant
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- 5 Canoe in background
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- 4
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- 3
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- 2 From camera, crop but no other processing
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- 1 From camera – no processing
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Canon 5Dii, Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens, ISO640, f 2.8, hand-held at various shutter speeds.
burnt embers 
Stunning. The drops on the leaves are spectacular.
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Thanks! I have to like water drops in this part of the world, but I do so much prefer them when the are acting as lenses to enlarge something that is special.
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These are all lovely – I like the color on the undersides of the leaves, especially in photograph #3. And that red leaf in #4 is amazing. The day’s flat lighting was perfect for these kinds of shots. Good work.
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That red leaf is almost too much for me. Can you imagine a carpet of those on the ground? I think my camera sensor might just pack it in if I exposed it to too many of those leaves. The underside is very much more my kinds of colour.
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Right re. the red leaves: it wouldn’t take too many of them to be TOO MANY of them! I like photo #4 because it’s got a good balance of red leaves, undersides of leaves, plus a couple of shots of green.
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I like that shot of green too, adds quite a bit I think
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The light that day was stunning!
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Good thing we both thinks so, since those flatly lit, between showers, kinds of days are all too common in this part of the world.
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I really like these images. Perhaps we will have a chance to shoot together next fall. I also want to see you in action with your modern DSLR and vintage glass 😉
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That certainly would be fun. I have only ever gone out on a shoot once with another photographer – and that was a few weeks ago with the Toad of Toadhollow Photography who lives up-island near Duncan, and we had a great time.
As to the vintage glass. I am drifting away from it a bit. I have an autofocus Canon macro lens now for a variety of reasons, but quite a bit to do with focus, even with focus confirm, was a bit of an issue with my glasses prescription making it hard to focus properly. Its a lot faster too. The Nikkor 24mm is still very much in use – it’s limitations are quite a bit of distortion and not the best coatings so it has some chromatic aberration issues, and the adapter chip is intermittent in giving me focus confirm, and proper EXIF data sometimes too. I stressed it on a field trip to Haida Gwaii in the summer and it has never quite come back – same for the Takumar macro. I also still use, but only rarely, my Takumar 200mm and 35mm lenses. The first is heavy and not always with me and the latter is not needed too much with fast 24mm and 50mm lenses always in use. Both these Takumar lenses are slow as well (f4 and f3.5).
Having said all that, the manual lenses are great for video – you don’t have to stop recording to change the f-stop, as with the Canon lenses, and autofocus does not work in video at all well, so manual it is, regardless of lens.
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You are excelling yourself again. Beautiful work.
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Thank you! I was given excellent light for these shots.
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These are superb……..
David.
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Thank you David.
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LOVE maple leaves 14 – a stunning image!
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Thanks Lynn! I like that one too – if had been thinking a bit more carefully I would have used it as the transition image to the macros instead of in the fourth spot in the gallery.
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Wonderful, I really like these.
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Thanks skadhu, it was your urging me in the comments to your beautiful ginkgo leaf post that got these ones out the door!
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These are totally terrific, Ehpem! I, too, LOVE the colors from the underside of the leaves, and your compositions here really tell a poignant story of nature in them! Great work, my friend!
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Hi Toad – thanks so much. They were really eye catching, that pinkish grey. I had been out there one day to drop the apples off and wanted to take a photo but did not have time. The next day when I picked up the juice, I made sure to get some shots.
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Beautiful tones, ephem. I love the close up water drops, too.
We just planted a sugar maple in our yard!
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Hi Karen – I take it that you agree that this is indeed a sugar maple then. And, lucky you to have these kinds of leaves in your own garden!
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This is another great macro series. Man, you are on a roll!!! Sugar Maples are common around here and among the last trees to loose their leaves. The Museum has a Nature Center and, when it gets colder out, has demonstrations on how the sap (or syrup) is extracted and boiled down each year. Although I would love to see this, I haven’t made it out there for these events.
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Thanks Ken! Our friends that own these trees tried to tap them last year, for the first time (they are probably only 20-30 years old) and got a small amount of syrup – they were very pleased. We don’t really have the right weather around here, nor the best species of maple. The local species are sometimes used, but I understand its not really worth the effort. It would be interesting to see and do this – it is considered one of those iconic Canadian activities, but is really an eastern one (Canada as seen through Toronto’s national newspaper, etc).
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Very good series 🙂
Doy
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Thank you Doy:)
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