The Cat's Whiskers

Identification - Orthosiphon aristatus, cats whiskers.

I walk passed this gorgeous, exotic looking bloom every day. I have been meaning to blip it for a long time and so decided to collect some test shots today. It is actually growing out of the side of the ravine, below ground level and just extending up past the level of the path, so it was a full belly, chin in the dirt job.

Quite a voluminous bloom, I couldn’t decide what to focus on as there was no chance of getting it all in focus. I also had to think about the size of the bloom, as this information would be required for the blip text. Then a 3 spot yellow decided to join me and feast on the bloom. This solved all my problems, as the new focal point of the image, I focused on the butterfly which is about an inch across.

For the white, I under exposed by 4 clicks (1.3 stops) and still it needed more. I would say at least 6 clicks (2 stops) are needed to preserve detail. I had to go back to the RAW image to rescue some detail, but it turned out okay I think.

Dave