As I mentioned in my previous post, we spent some time in San Francisco last weekend. The reason for the trip was, of all things, the Norcal Cactus and Succulent show. I will be the first to admit that a cactus show isn’t high on my to-do list, but we take a bus down with some locals and it’s a fun day.

Cactus, and their succulent cousins, make interesting subjects. The variations of color and form are unlike any other plant type. It’s amazing that some of these plants can take years to produce a flower while others bloom regularly. I didn’t bother to read the label on this subject but I believe that it’s in the agave family. (A family that’s near and dear to my heart, but I digress.)

The show, this year, was in the county fair building in Golden Gate Park. Because of the spacing between tables and the sheer number of people, a tripod was out of the question. I wanted to concentrate on the cactus spines and let the background dissolve to colors and shapes so set my aperture at f/2.8. I was using my 24-70 f/2.8 so I zoomed in to 62mm to eliminate distractions from the edge of the frame. Since I was forced to hand-hold the camera I raised the ISO to 400 so I could get an acceptable shutter speed of 1/50th. That’s technically still slower than I’d have liked but I got lucky and got a sharp image.

I have a few more images from this trip but I’ll save those for another day.

Cheers