Orchid Borealis

Photography is about light and darkness, so you can get very different images from the same subject depending on how you set up the light.  I shouldn't say that lighting is the MOST important factor because finding an interesting subject and composition comes before the light.  In terms of the gear, appropriate, easy-to-control light sources can dramatically improve the images (or shorten the time required to get the images you want).  On the other hand, you might or might not get marginally better images by upgrading the camera body.  And they are usually much cheaper than a new camera body. I have been using two to three speedlights/flashes for most of plant photography.  They are tripped by inexpensive radio remote flash triggers.  Since I don't use TTL for this kind of photography, I just use old and cheap manual flashes. I frequently use a soft box or umbrellas as the light modifiers.  These modifiers make the light more diffused.  Wit...

This was written in 2016, and since then, there are several linear modules which have higher efficiencies.  At the very end of this post, I added the information about these updates.  Samsung EB-Series Gen. 3 Slim version is probably the one I would use (Sept 2019) if I were to redo this fixture. Happy thanksgiving, everyone! Recently, I needed a grow light for a relatively small grow area (the plastic container shown above).  COB LEDs are great for a large area with enough vertical space.  I could have used smaller COB LEDs, but I thought something like Philips XF-3535L ( previous post ) would be great.  After comparing quite a few LED linear modules, I determined that Samsung H series has the best performance for the price at this moment.  Indeed the efficacy is amazing, even higher than typical COB.  But it does cost a bit more per light output than COB.  So here is a brief report of this build. Samsung H series was announced in summer...

The large boat shaped structure (bottom side of the flower) is the synsepal. Dresslerella is a small genus with about 13 species at this moment.  Most of them have distinctive fuzzy leaves and flowers.  There has been a confusion about D. lasiocampa and D. hirsutissima , and many plants sold as D. hirsutissima  were actually D. lasiocampa .  Indeed, I purchased my plant as D. hirsutissima PRS1362 from Mundiflora , but it turned out to be D. lasiocampa . Medina and Pupulin (2010) has a good review of the history of this confusion as well as an easy key to identify Dresslerella species.  Briefly, the confusion originated from the illustration of D. hirsutissima in Luer (1988, link to the illustration).  The illustration was based on D. lasiocampa.  In 2005, Luer and Hirtz noticed the error and described the new species D. lasiocampa, based on this specimen.  Luer has the updated, correct illustration in the later volume of Ico...

Plants are all potted up. I have always wanted to order Nepenthes from Wistuba in Germany.  I finally did it this fall!  I personally don't care about artificially created hybrids, and Wistuba has the widest selection of Nepenthes and Heliamphora species.  They have so many cool plants, so I had to watch out the budget and be selective.  I received the shipment 2 days ago!  Very excited!  Now all  Nepenthes are under CITES appendix II (some are under app. I).  But Wistuba has distributors in several countries including the USA.  So you don't have to go through the importation process by yourself.  You can order via their web page like domestic shopping. Wistuba ships the pooled orders to the US once a month, and the distributor takes care of the importation, and send the plants within the US.  It is a fairly good and simple system from the buyer's perspective.  It costs 60 Euro for documentation, international and dome...

4'x4'x8'x grow tent with 8 COB LEDs installed. In this post, I'll try to explain the basics of how to match LEDs and drivers.   I use chip-on-board (COB) LEDs as examples, but the principle applies to any LEDs.  Here are links to my previous blog posts about DIY COB LEDs and linear LED modules .   I'll cover the following topics: Basics Matching the LEDs with the driver Multiple LEDs driven by a single driver An example of my setup with 4x CXB3590 Measurement of light coverage homogeneity 1. Basics Types of drivers: Most LEDs require direct current (DC), so alternating current (AC) of the power outlet has to be converted to DC.  This is one of the roles of LED drivers (power supplies).  We usually use something called constant current (CC) drivers instead of more common constant voltage (CV) drivers.  A CV driver is similar to a computer power supply, USB charger/outlet, or some of "wall bricks" used for some appliances.  An USB outl...