dimanche 22 avril 2007

Are You Missing Mistletoe? And what it promises? This flora article is very much out of season... but as it has been so noticeable at the edge of my vision, high up in the trees wherever I go, for the past few weeks I feel I have to get it out of my system - otherwise I will be dwelling on it until Christmastide, which is still some time away. The plant so attractive in the wild at the moment is Mistletoe, Viscum album, the European variety... a parasitic growth that is worth a great deal commercially in some cultures because of what it promises at a certain time of the year. I say in the wild, but British mistletoe is seen mainly in Herefordshire and most commonly on cultivated Apple trees in orchards. The UK distribution of mistletoe was first described by Dr. H. G. Bull in 1864 with a list of 30 host species for the plant in that county and a further 23 species in other parts of the country. Here in France mistletoe grows mainly on the peuplier (Poplar) which is seen in neat ranks or files bordering many roadsides and riverbanks. However, these trees would not have occurred naturally in such rows - having been planted like that and coppiced for hundreds of years - so perhaps it is incorrect to describe them as being in the wild, but I use the term generally to indicate a location not actively farmed or cultivated for a twice-yearly crop. An odd piece of information I picked up this afternoon whilst talking with a man fishing from a bridge where I had parked my bike so that I could photograph another bunch of overhanging mistletoe... is that the Poplar is used in the manufacture of matches. I feel as I write this that I'm veering off the aforementioned road and steering into the river running parallel to it... getting into deeper water than necessary! I should iterate that the French "paysan" does take care of his trees, there being a tradition throughout this land (and probably others too) that for every tree felled for shelter or warmth (building construction or fuel for the fire) another should be planted. Our old neighbour in mid-Wales, Gwyllam Morris - also a peasant and fiercely proud of it - upheld the same traditions... he always had an old sack across his shoulders - tied at the front with a bit of string - and was often to be seen bent headfirst into an old hedgerow where, on closer inspection, he would be planting a few hawthorn saplings. Not for him the unsightly standby of using an old metal bedstead which was still seen filling many gaps in walls and hedges in the Welsh hill-landscape up until the 1980s when antiques dealers began to part with good money for them in their original form - he cared for the countryside for the next generation... and hopefully for the next after that. The two photos were taken with the new lens combo I'm carrying around on my cycle rides... a 12-24mm f/4 extra-wide Nikkor zoom plus a new 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor which I took delivery of yesterday. The big zoom looks a heavy brute... but it handles well and balances very nicely in the hand and on a monopod. I was relieved to note that when fitted on a monopod the "Vibration Reduction" feature can still be used... which is financially beneficial because as I screw a monopod under most camera and longish lens combinations nowadays I would have been paying for the VR feature without using it much of the time. This feature is being discussed in a thread on the DPReview Nikon SLR Lens Talk Forum as I write this and confirmed my own findings after brief trials. The lead photo was taken at the 12mm setting on my get-it-all-in-wide-angle zoom. Had I known a red tractor was fast approaching I would have waited and included it as a point of interest. By the time the vehicle did appear over the rise I had the 70-200 tele-zoom on the camera and was aiming upwards to photograph an unusually dense mass of mistletoe berries - what would a hundred or more sprigs from that bunch fetch on the English market at Christmas? No wonder French gitanes make the Channel crossing with lorry loads of the mystical plant every December. Mystical and fascinating... although there is only one species of mistletoe in Britain and much of Europe, there are over 900 species world-wide... all being hemiparasites in that their leaves carry out some photosynthesis whilst the host tree provides water and nutrients. It's life-cycle is best understood by checking the Wikipedia Mistletoe page which explains that Mistletoe figured prominently in Norse mythology, leading to the custom of couples kissing under bunches of it hung as Christmas decorations. The appearance and nature of the fruit's content (viscin) is very similar or suggestive of male semen, and this has strengthened its connections with virility. However, as mistletoe also bears fruit at the time of the New Year it may have been used in a fertility rite in Ancient Britain... eventually becoming the "kissing under the mistletoe" tradition which is very British and not widely practised in the rest of Europe. The Germans use mistletoe widely for medicinal purposes, and probably the best French use is to sell it to the English... nobody needs a seasonal excuse for kissing in this country! French Countryfolk Harvesting Mistletoe for the Christmas Market Giclee Print 18 in. x 24 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed   Mounted 3:36:50 PM    comment []

70~200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor First impressions... no great shakes! This isn't a review... just a brief word on a new lens I took delivery of this morning. It is big and heavy... but that is what I actually prefer in a long zoom lens... something solid to grip! I'll write up my impressions of how it performs optically another time... this note is simply to say that I can work with it. I have an unusual requirement of camera equipment... it has to be comprehensive enough to enable me to make and take a set of images which would be good enough for a magazine article... the subject matter being broad, but centring around travel and what I see when doing that. However, at the moment 'travel' is done on a bike ('fixed wheel,' to make exercising more interesting) or pushing my wife around in her wheelchair. Both activities only allow me to carry a minimal outfit in a small backpack... a camera body and a couple of lenses. Well, the camera body for the past year has been a Nikon D200 and most frequently the lens I originally bought with it... a 12~24mm f/4 Nikkor extra-wide angle. Now I have a near perfect partner for it for my type of photography... a 70~200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor telephoto zoom. It can be slung into the backpack and retrieved in a couple of seconds. It is heavy, so stays in the bottom of the sack without bouncing out (broken zip) when I regularly cross rural railway tracks, but is not a burden when cycling as the total weight is very reasonable. However, writing about photography is not very interesting without images... and the photo of the level-crossing sign was the first one I took with the new lens. I'd been cycling fairly fast for a few kilometres so was breathing quite hard... but no problem when you have a "Vibration Reduction" lens to take the shakes out of your own system. Shooting at ISO 100 the exposure reading said 1/100th of a sec at f/8 which is not very advisable when using a 200mm lens (best to use the reciprocal of the shutter speed... or at least 1/200th with a 200mm lens). But I framed the shot and let the lens do the work... and again a couple of minutes later when I heard a tractor speeding along the lane... same exposure... same very satisfactory result which would probably not have been achieved with an ordinary telephoto zoom lens under the same conditions (me out of breath). From the first day's use I feel I'll enjoy using this zoom a lot. It was expensive... but I think it could be the best photographic investment I have made for a long time. Now it has to start earning it's keep - or help me earn mine! 12:26:06 AM    comment []