Macros with a flash

  In most of my photography I rely on ambient, natural light. I think that the sun is the best light source existing. Today I thought I'd make an compromise and try to shoot a couple of macro images with my old and faithful sb-600 speedlight unit. For the purpose I fastened it on a tripod and adjusted it so that I could use it wireless and off-camera. In these next three images the strobe is placed on the right side of the camera and quite close to the subject and the power is 1/16 of full power.

   A shield bug larvae on fig leaf...

   Bees enjoying an overly ripe fig...

   A snail on a zinnia.    

Out in the field again

  Even if I love to be out in the field alone, it's always nice to be accompanied by like minded. Yesterday I had the chance to guide Kenneth Rosenlund around in the valley. Kenneth is a professional bird and nature artist. If you want, you can check out hes work from here. We started the morning from a nearby pond. Nothing to see, just a couple of birds and that's it. When we left the place I noticed that one of my favorite hills is covered in fog, so a small stop and a couple of clicks with the camera...

   After half an hour the mist started to get away from the sun and I had the chance to watch how you paint an bee eater. It's amazing what someone talented can do with a brush, paper and colors. Amazing, or what do you say?

  Not only the bee eaters were there, but quite a bunch of red-backed shrikes too and I even managed to shoot one golden oriole.

  When the bee eater portrait was ready, my friend wanted to paint a landscape. As you see you can use a car not only for driving, but as a stand as well.

Mean while I took a walk and photographed a couple of sand lizards and three puppies I found in a concrete pit full of carcasses and gut parts... gross

The day ended in Sofia with few more golden orioles. As said, it's always nice to get out in the field with people who are interested of the natural world.

Visitor in the yard

  Dragonflies aren't the most frequent visitors in our yard, but maybe once or twice in a summer they'll make an exception. This yellow fellow landed on a dry branch on one of the apple trees. I saw it from the window, jumped up from my chair, picked up my camera and tripod and rushed out. I was pretty sure he'd be gone, but no, there he was still on the same twig enjoying the sun. First I tried to approach him from the other side, just to shoot him with a nice rim light, back lit, but he was too faraway. A new approach from the other side, with quite a bit of branches and apples in my way. Carefully I managed to place my tripod and camera between the branches and make a few frames, but still I felt he's too faraway. Nowadays I usually don't shoot macros without my tripod. But what can you do when the tripod becomes more than an obstacle? You'll shoot free hand and that's just what I did. Luckily I ended up with at least one decently sharp image.

    

Bush and a bush cricket

  A fig tree in the yard can be full of surprises and photo opportunities and of course figs too. Today I found two bush crickets on the same branch. Sad to say I was two slow to shoot, the other one moved away before I managed to make a frame of the two on the same leaf. Here's one shot made with a 150 mm macro lens, wide open f4,5, @ ISO 800 (bad light)...

   

Caterpillars

  I think there is quite a bunch of garden keepers who wouldn't like their roses to be eaten by caterpillars. I don't care. If there is roses I photograph roses and if the roses are eaten by caterpillars then I photograph caterpillars. That's pretty much what happened today. Finally I forced my self to do something in the garden and dug out the lawnmower from the shelter. Half of the job was done when I noticed a couple of nice caterpillars feeding on one of our roses. What can you do? Leave the lawn, get inside, grab your camera and make a couple of images.

DX / FX

  Just did a test out in the yard. FX / full frame and DX / crop sensor. Not really a big test, just to see the difference in the images taken with the same 150 mm macro lens, from the same distance with a Nikon D300s and D700.

                                                                Nikon D300s, @ f11

                                                                 Nikon D700, @ f11

  As you can see, there's a small difference. At the same half of the life size magnification (1:2) the crop sensor gives you bit more reach, a nice thing to have when you want to shoot tiny small things like bugs. Otherwise when shooting @ ISO 200. there's not too much of a difference in quality. Not really a big thing, but just to kill time a nice small test.  

Damselflies

  Had to get my feet wet literally for these images, but I think it was worth it.