Some orchids of the past week

I have still quite a lot of pictures of orchids at my harddrive that I haven't posted yet. So I will show you some of the orchids I photographed in the past weeks.

I start with the Fly-orchid - Fliegenraguwrz (ophrys insectifera)





The next orchid is a Fragrant Orchid - Mückenhändelwurz (gymnadenia conopsea)





European Common Twayblade - Großes Zweiblatt (listera ovata)



Lesser Butterfly-orchid - Weiße Waldhyanzithe (platanthera bifolia)



The last flower is not an orchid, it is a One-flowered Wintergreen - Kleines Moosauge (moneses uniflora). I photographed this littlw flower at the location with all the Lady Slippers and we had a great time and results with this subject!





My exams are getting closer and I have less and less time to go photographing. 2 Days ago I went photographing with a friend and we wanted to find one of the rarest orchids in Germany. We were really lucky and found a big field with a good population of this rare orchids. There were also some other orchid species I wanted to photograph for a long time. I was really happy that I took a break from studying and went photographing for an evening :-).
I will post some images from that trip later!

The images above were made with a Canon 7D - Sigma 150/2.8 (+1.4 TC) and a Tripod or Beanbag.


Sebastian Erras
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~ Lady Slipper - Frauenschuh ~

The past 2 weeks I extensively photographed Lady Slippers (cypripedium calceolus). Here in the east of Bavaria we still have a big population of these orchids. In just 20-30km radius I have several big fields of them and it is always a pleasure to find new locations and photograph them. This year I found 2 new location of which one is pretty big. Last weekend I had a friend visiting me and we went photograph some orchids together. He is a very good photographer and he always tries to see a subject differently with outcome that he produces some very interesting and creative images. I was happy that I learned some stuff from him and that i was able to produce some cool images. Then this weekend I had 2 other friends visiting me to photograph orchids. All of them are members of the GDT Youth Group and I was happy to host our first gathering. We had a lot of fun and made some cool images although most of the lady slippers already withered.
As it was not the first time that I photographed these orchids, my goal was to create some different and unusual images of these flower.

Here are some images














For all images I used my Canon 7D and 12-24/4 , 24/1.8, 50/1.8 , 150/2.8, beanbag or a tripod.

I am pretty happy with the results and I hope that it won't be my last time to photograph these beautiful flowers.
I also photographed a few more orchids and I will post some images of them later.

Sebastian Erras
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Frog Orchid and some bad luck

This time I want to show another rarer orchid in Germany - the frog orchid (Coeloglossum viride). In the past this orchid has seen a big decline, but luckily the situation in Bavaria is not that worse yet. It was very rainy day and I still went in the afternoon to a location where I suspected to find this orchid. It took quite some time to actually find it, as I expected it to be bigger. The frog orchid can be about 10-40cm high and the orchids at this location were rather small than tall. After I found the first one I quickly found the rest of them and there were actually a lot. After 10 Minutes it stopped raining and it got more comfortable to photograph in the field. At this location I was also surprised to find another orchid, which I wouldn't have expected there - the early purple orchid (orchis mascula), but I only found 2 individuals.













Images were taken with a 7D - Sigma 150/2.8 - Bean Bag

This morning the sun finally came back to Bavaria and I met with a friend to shoot Lady Slippers in my area. We had a great morning with some great images and fun. After a few hours I went back home, cause I had to leave to Switzerland in the afternoon. I also planned to take my camera and try to shot some orchids there. When I arrived in the evening in Switzerland I unloaded my car and checked my camera bag, when I noticed that it was a little lighter than usual. So I opened the bag and saw that there was no camera :-(. I forgot my 7D at home when I took it out of the bag to review some images from this morning and forgot to put it back in my bag. As if this wouldn't already be worse enough, I found a field full of orchids just 100m in front of our apartment and I will have no time to come back in the next weeks. So here I am with no camera, all my lenses, tripods and all the rest and a beautiful field of of orchids just in front of me and I can' t take pictures.
At least I have my iPhone with me so I can try to use that to take some pictures.
More pics of orchis will come next weekend when I have my camera back.
Sebastian Erras
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Military Orchid - Helmknabenkraut

Last week I visited a location in the city of Ratisbona with a great amount of military orchids (orchis militaris). The location is on a industrial terrain and I had to ask permission first to enter the terrain. The owner was really friendly and helpful and showed me the location.
The first day I went the was during midday and it was pretty windy. Unfortunately I forgot my lensplate and I don't have a spare one so I couldn't use my tripod that day.
I was really impressed by the amount of military orchids. I guess there were about 200-300 orchids there. I was just right on time as the first orchids started to wither. I was also surprised to find about 6 albino version of the military orchid.
At the moment I am trying more and more to get habitat pictures, but I am still not satisfied with the results. So I have to keep practising.

Military Orchid - orchis militaris - Helmknabenkraut

I used a Canon 7D - Sigma 150/2.8 - Sigma 20/1.8 - Tokina 12-24/4 - Canon 70-200/4 IS - Tripod

Actually this morning I planned to go to the Lady Slippers, but it is raining Cats and Dogs here at the moment and I planned to look for some other orchids in my area today. I hope it will stop raining his afternoon so that I can go on with my planning.

Sebastian Erras
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Orchis pallens & Burnt Orchid

One of the rarer species in my area with only a few locations in Eastern Bavaria. I went there in the morning and it was raining straight for 2 days. It took me a while to find the exact location,but i was happy that they were still there.So far I photographed 3 new orchid species for me and I hope to get some more the next weeks.









I also went for a third time to the location of the burnt orchid and there even more orchids there than the week before. I was really unlucky with light. I had sun for a few hours and when I waited for the perfect late evening light clouds appeared.
So that was probably it for this year with the Burnt orchid and I am happy that I got the beautiful backlight images last week.
So here a few images from this week.







Images were taken with a Canon 7D - 70-200/4 IS - Sigma 150/2.8 - Tokina 12-24/4

Sebastian Erras
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Green winged orchid

Here is another orchid species I photographed this week - the green winged orchid (orchis morio). Another photographer told me the location for this orchid and joined me on Tuesday to photograph them. It was my first time to see and photograph this species.
I was really happy that there was a spot pretty close by to my place. We went there in the late afternoon and had great weather and it was pretty hot, too. Unfortunately the sun moved behind clouds the last hour just before sundown, so we didn't get the great evening light I had the weekend before with the burnt orchids.









I went there again the next day with the hope to photograph them again in perfect evening light.
First I was not lucky with the light as it was cloudy and secondly there were no orchids left.
So what happened. A Shepard moved with his sheep over the fields and they ate all the orchids. There was literally no single orchid left on that location. I was really disappointed and can still not understand why they are allowed the let their sheep grass on known locations of orchids.

The images were taken with a 7D - Sigma 150/2.8 and a beanbag

I hope that I will be able to photograph another new orchid species for me this afternoon. Weather doesn't look too promising as it is raining the whole day already, but we will see.

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Orchid Season has started !

So finally the orchid season has started here in the south of Germany.

The last weeks I visited some locations to photograph the burnt orchid (orchis ustulata) and the green winged orchid. I found a great spot for burnt orchids with over a hundred orchids. I went there 2 days in a row and I got pretty lucky with the weather. After a storm the sky cleared up and the sun appeared and gave 40 Minutes of beautiful evening light.







I had a so great time with these orchids, that I can't wait to visit all the other orchids in my area in the next weeks.

The images were taken with a Canon 7D - EF 70-200/4 L IS - Sigma 150/2.8 HSM - Sigma 24/1.8 and a beanbag.

So stay tuned for more orchids in the next days / weeks :-)

Sebastian Erras

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