Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Saturday a girl-friend and I went hiking up in the hills about an hour northeast from home. We were on the hunt for Spring wildflowers. We hiked just over 5 miles and saw so many beautiful flowers at peak bloom.

Spring and Winter Vetch, rose clover, and small head clover are abundant up there. It was lovely to see carpets of colors this year.  What to show you first? I’ll start here 🙂

This little cluster is not much bigger than my pinky fingernail. I haven’t identified it yet. It’s not in any of my reference books.  It’s a new flower for me.

Bee fly on Milk Thistle. I love Thistle.

After hiking downstream a mile and quarter we hiked back and headed to Little Yosemite Gorge and Fall. There are several places to stop to take photos of the little rapids; we stopped at one after going up to the Fall which was packed with kids and adults climbing over the rocks and wading in the pools at the bottom of the cascades. We didn’t spend much time there. I need to head there first next time.

Bellardia- another new wildflower on my list. I think the rains awakened  seeds long dormant. It was so exciting seeing new flowers this year.

and one last one for today…Elegant Clarkia. I haven’t seen this for several years. Isn’t it beautiful!

I went on a little hike Sunday night too and found more wildflowers. It was really windy and cold so I didn’t take too many images of the flowers. I hope to get back up there when the wind dies down.  It was a good week-end for me exercise and photography wise.  I hope you all had a great week-end, and your week has started off good too!

Nikon Df| Nikkor 28-105mm macro lens + Canon 500D Close-Up lens| Delkin Digital Film| Hand-held and tripod| PS CC 2015

Lens choice reasoning- Since I would be hiking uphill, and a distance for 5+ miles I wanted to keep my gear to a minimum, because I had to carry extra water just in case. The place we were hiking didn’t have potable water, and I didn’t want to pack my water filter. I carried 32 ounces of water, my tripod, 5 filters, and my Canon 500D close up lens, my LensBaby, and a few other items I felt were necessary. Having a light weight macro lens option was my old Nikkor 28-105mm micro lens. It gives the ability to shoot both macro and landscapes which is a perfect solution for what I like to photograph when hiking.  It’s not a true 1:1 macro lens rather it’s 1:2, but with my 500D attached I can get closer to 1:1.  I realize I’m compromising image quality doing this, but with good technique, and post development I hope to make up for some of that.

Keeping my pack weight down on longer hikes is much more comfortable and enjoyable for me and worth the compromise.

More to come…