The flower to the left is a Showy Orchid, it is a native of Minnesota Woods but quite rare. We saw our first in our woods last year, this year we have hundreds hiding under logs in wet, shady areas. The blossom is about three-quarters of an inch in height, less than one-half wide. I spent some time on the forest floor with this one a couple of weeks ago.
Lighting is tough on the forest floor. It’s very diffuse and quite dark. This image shows some grain as I was pushing things to ISO 800 or so. Slow shutter speeds are a must as a fairly tight aperture is needed to maintain enough depth-of-field with a macro lens to bring the entire flower into focus. Sometimes, as in this photograph, I add a bit of low-powered flash from my on-camera unit. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D70 equipped with a 50mm Sigma Macro. As there is not room for a tripod under the camera when shooting from ground level I use the Pod under my camera, a sort of beanbag with a screw-in tripod fitting that attaches it to the base of the camera.
