Fall colors are beginning to peak around the area. A few days ago, while hiking the nearby natural prairie, fall was extremely evident as the Sumac are exhibiting their brilliant red colors right now:
And even the sumac berries are festive with fall colors:
Why the love-hate relationship with these beauties? From a love standpoint, you can’t find a deeper, crisper red in the fall. Hiking the prairie and finding this deep fall color is exhilarating to me. The hate? Unfortunately, sumac is extremely invasive and once it gets established, it forms dense thickets of large “shrubs” and makes it very difficult to hike the entire prairie. It also tends to choke out some of the natural wildflowers. So, as pretty and refreshing as fall sumac is, it needs to be better controlled.
Over the next week, I am going to be chasing the fall colors, so posts will likely be sporadic as I split my time between teaching in the evenings and shooting during the days. :o)
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 5D Mark 3 body
- Canon EF 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens + Canon 1.4x Teleconverter
- Vanguard Alta Pro 283CT carbon fiber tripod, with 3 Pod H-3 ballhead
- ISO 800 (bottom 2 images) and ISO 400 (top image)
- Aperture f/5 (top 2 images) and f/8 (bottom image)
- Shutter 1/80 sec. (top image), 1/50 sec. (middle image), and 1/320 sec. (bottom image)