Insects!

Once again, I took my camera armed with my macro lens to my father-in-law's backyard, which is always teeming with wildlife.  I had observed an iridescent blue dragonfly over the past week, so I was hoping to capture it's spectacular colour.  However it proved to be skittish, so I also stalked some other prey when Mr. Blue flew away before I could take his picture.





And finally, the elusive prize I chased all afternoon settled down and posed for me just as the sun was starting to set.


It's colours are gorgeous!



 - jc

Into the nest!

I was doing some work in my back yard yesterday. I wasn't happy with the way I had done a panel on my deck, so I took it upon myself to fix it. Step one: remove old boards. Step two: discover wasps' nest attached to back of one board. Step three: freak out! Step 4: grab camera and take some of the most awesome macros I've ever shot.

Let me me put this in perspective -- it really was just the start of a wasp' nest, not a full blown barracks, with only a few wasps crawling on it. So it's not like I was putting my life in danger here. The nest was about the size of a walnut, and fully attached to one board. That made it really easy to position the nest in a spot that was easy to photograph without royally provoking the wasps into launching a nuclear attack against me.

That said, I STILL took my time and moved very slowly as I took these pictures. I was also a little worried that my flash would make them go berserk, and a couple of times they certainly looked a little annoyed with me. But I guess they didn't see me as a threat to the nest, so they left me alone.

One thing that I found fascinating was that the hive is shaped like a tree. I thought at first there was a nail sticking out of the board on which they had built the nest, but the "tree truck" was actually part of the structure they had manufactured. Who knew!

Alas, I have a one-year-old running around, so I had no choice but to destroy the nest. But not before I was able to shoot LOTS of images. Here are a handful. Click on them for larger versions, and MANY more of these little guys and their nest.














- jc

Bug hunting -- this time with flash!

You'll remember in a previous post that I tried out using a flash when shooting closeup work. I had intended on taking pictures of bugs, but I couldn't find any. Well, today I did, and I used my flash to light them all up while I shot their portraits.

Different ball game with bugs, my friends. I was excited to get awesome depth of field, snappy colour, zero noise, and tack sharp results. Not as easy as as it sounds...

Problem #1: Close Focus
When shooting bugs, I focus at the absolute closest focus distance. I'm SO close that the hot spot of the flash is projected beyond where my lens is focused. I still get some light fall off due to the use of the dome diffuser, but nowhere near as much as the full brunt. I found I needed set my flash to full power to get enough light on the scene. This also meant the bugs were lit from the top, with no light at all filling in the details. The effect is somewhat cool, but bugs are much cooler up close when you can see all of the bits that make them up.

Problem #2: You Only Get One Shot to Get It Right
In 99% of the cases, the flash burst scared away the insect. That meant I had one chance -- not only to get the focus dead on -- but to make sure the flash power was right as well. In one case, the fly I was shooting was SO fast, that resulting image was JUST his legs poking down from the top of the frame as he flew away when the flash went off. Since the flash needs to recycle each time, burst mode was out too, as my flash won't keep up at full power.

Problem #3: The Flash Gets In The Way
The flash, especially with the diffuser mounted on top, is big and bulky, and bumps into stuff. Usually the plant the bug is sitting on, effectively announcing my presence and prompting the little guy to fly away.



To fix Problem #1, I needed to capture some ambient light. That meant higher ISO, and subsequently higher noise. I suppose I could have shelled out a few hundred bucks for a macro lens that gave me more working distance, like a 100mm or 200mm, or $3000 (roughly) for a Canon 5D mk ii in order to get noise-free images at high ISO, but I'm cheap, so higher ISO was my practical option. I also needed to stop down to f/11, so my depth of field was, once again, reduced.

Fixing Problem #2 and #3 were more an exercise in patience than anything else.

Now, having said that, when it works out, it's AWESOME!!! Take a look at this one:


Now a 100% crop of the eyes:


Are you kidding me??? I can literally count the eyes! No way I could get this handheld without a flash.

Here are a few more. As always, click on them for larger versions and more from the study:









-jc

Some Macro

I particularly like doing macro photography. The world looks very different when viewed up close. The best part is you don't need to go very far to get an exotic looking image. All of the examples below were shot either in my yard or in my father-in-law's back yard, which backs on to a ravine.

The final images can be stunning, but the shooting process itself is very rewarding. I like to take pictures of insects. Insects are fascinating creatures. I really see insects differently through my lens, perhaps because I am paying attention to its pose, and details. I can often make out personality traits, something I would not normally attribute to something so small. Sometimes I lose myself watching these little guys go about their business as I wait for that perfect moment when I snap the shutter.

I've been practicing a hand-holding technique for taking macro shots. Ideally you'd want to use a tripod, but bugs are skittish, and sudden movements almost always scare them away. Plus it's difficult to position the tripod such that I can actually get a decent vantage point. So I resign myself to handhold instead. I set up as follows:

• I need to keep the shutter speed fast, so I usually have to crank the ISO up to 400 or 800. I have to rely on noise reduction in post.


• When you're so close up, depth of field can be in the millimeters. So I'll compensate by using a fairly small aperture. f/11, or when light allows f/16. Sometimes I'll open up to f/8, but I won't go any faster then that -- too little of the scene will actually be in focus.


• When I see an interesting insect, I meter the scene from afar and, with my camera set on manual mode, set my exposure before i approach


• I set my lens on manual focus. This is VERY important, as the camera will not know which part of the scene I want to focus on.


• I approach slowly, adjusting focus as I go. When I am sufficiently close, I fine tune the focus until the most important part of the scene is in perfect focus. A difficult thing to do, as the slightest movement on my part changes the focus significantly.


• Breathing slowly and controlled, I gently rock forward and away from my subject. This adjusts the focus without me turning the focus ring on the lens. As the scene comes into the focus I want, I press the shutter button. In order to increase my chances of nailing the image, I usually set my camera on burst mode, and snap off two or three at a time.

Here are a few shots using this technique. As always, click on them for larger sizes, and more in the study.








This one was shot at f/8. You can see how even stopped down that far how shallow the depth of field is.


I also took a moment to take some shots of flowers in my wife's garden. She has recently taken up gardening as a hobby, and these are her first proud blooms! In this case, I set up with a tripod so I could afford a lower ISO sensitivity and a slower shutter speed. But that is not without peril, as the slightest breeze throws the scene way out of focus. So I had to be patient. Using a remote release cable and mirror lock helped to eliminate camera shake. So it really was a matter of waiting for the right moment when the wind died down enough to snap the image.







This one was actually too close to the ground to use a tripod. So I used the hand-held rocking technique to get this one.

Some things I want to try:

• Focus stacking. This is where I take several exposures of the same scene focused on different parts. The images are combined in software in order to create a vaster depth of field.


• Using a flash, either as the main light or as fill light. Should help me get the ISO down, and freeze the little guy in place.

- jc