OK, I spill the beans and reveal it all. But promise not to laugh ...
I worked these dandelions for some hours, in UV as well as in visible light. Light was variable, occasional rain showers caused even more trouble, and wind almost reached gale force after a while, thus without the Sachtler CF ENG HD tripod the mission on that exposed shore would have to be aborted. For the capture I had my D2X added to the 200-400 mm f/4 ED Nikkor and the zoom set to around 300 mm according to my field notes. What I tried to achieve was a core of recognisable sharpness softened by wind-induced movements. To this end, the camera ran in multiple exposure mode with Auto Gain = Off and the maximum frame number provided (9 if memory serves).
This project was more difficult to achieve than I had imagined and most shots came out with too clearly defined double contours. I finally converged at a shooting protocol in which the first in the sequence was taken at the widest aperture and shortest exposure time to make a sharp core, followed by a sequence of additional exposures made as long as possible by stopping down the lens all the way.
The selected composite frame was taken when some additional light occurred to the background thereby exceeding the dynamic range of the D2X. Processing in Bibble 4 with its peculiar highlight recovery adding lots of colour casts to the recovered areas did the rest.
So, now you all know the recipe for shooting a dandelion ...
