photoartflightCucumber Beetles
Posted on July 2, 2020
Sometimes it is fun to go out in the yard or fields to see what subjects you can find close at home. I look to see if there are any interesting bugs to photograph. Usually I look for dragonflies, but any insects will do. Here are a series of Cucumber Beetles. I was using a Sigma 150mm macro lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon 7D. I also used a flash with diffusion to add some fill light to lighten the shadow areas to give a more even light on the images.
Female Common Whitetail Dragonfly
Posted on June 30, 2020
A few images of a female Common Whitetail Dragonfly taken along a walk at the Audubon Plainsboro Preserve in NJ. I was using a Canon 300mm f/4 lens on a Canon 7D, mainly because it was lighter to carry for a long walk. The background is a little busy with the sandy & pebble path. But it cooperated by not flying off!
Odd Bug Under A Leaf
Posted on June 25, 2020
I was going through old backup drives cleaning out images to make more room and came across this odd bug image from years ago. Do not know what it is, but it is definitely different looking. Images taken with a Sigma 150mm macro with a Canon 1.4X teleconverter on a Canon 7D. I was also using some fill light in the shadows with a flash dialed down and more diffusion added to the flash head to just give a little more light on the subject as it was under the leaf.
Immature Black-Crowned Night Heron
Posted on May 16, 2020
I found this Immature Black-Crowned Night-Heron hidden in the shade along the trees off Wildlife Drive at J.N. Ding Darling NWR. I was using a 100-400mm lens @400mm. Luckily it did not go deeper into the trees as another one did that was next to it.
Great Spreadwing Damselfly
Posted on May 13, 2020
I am still going through backup drives for images to post here. But at the same time I am also editing out images I do not need on my backup drives. Which is freeing a lot of room on these drives for more recent work. This is an image of a Great Spreadwing Damselfly. I was using a Canon 70-300mm DO lens (Diffractive Optics) at 300mm on a Canon 7D. I was surprised that lens worked so well on this subject. It is not the “sharpest” Canon zoom lens for fine detail, but is convenient, stabilized & lightweight to carry. Also much shorter, but wider than a “normal” 70-300mm lens because of the Diffractive Optics. It really helps to shoot “raw” files with this lens & use Adobe Camera Raw to pull out more detail and smooth out the nasties.
Snowy Egret FlyBy
Posted on April 14, 2020
Another series of images from previous photo trips years ago. Here, even if you wanted to go to a local park, the entrances are blocked by Police Cars. So they are quite serious about staying at home. This is a series of Snowy Egret FlyBy images from a previous trip years ago to the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, Florida. The Snowy Egret images were photographed @ 300mm with a Canon 100-400mm lens.
American Oystercatchers
Posted on April 7, 2020
I photographed these American Oystercatchers from a much earlier trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. We saw quite a few Oystercatchers around especially by the waters edge. They seem to be very skiddish birds so I was using a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on 7D Camera (for a Full Frame Field of View ~ 896mm). I really like their bright colored beak and eyes! They really stand out!
Alligator With Smile & Feather
Posted on April 1, 2020
I found this Alligator at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. It looked like it was happy & smiling. Then I noticed the feather above it’s eye! Maybe it looked happy because it just finished a feathery meal. Or maybe the feather dropped down from the birds in the trees above the gator. The Alligators there actually protect the many nests in the rookery that are above the alligators. They keep many of the predators that would be attacking the nests from getting to the nests. It is amazing how many nests there are at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm.
Little Green Heron & Black-crowned Night-Heron Foraging
Posted on March 13, 2020
We found this Green Heron foraging for a meal early in the morning at J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, Florida. It was very focused on something in the water and hardly moved for quite a while. I guess what it was staring at disappeared and then it relaxed it’s stance and moved on. Also nearby was an immature Black-crowned Night-Heron. It was fun to see the 2 small herons close to each other. Because of the wide range of smaller photo subjects and the distance to them at J.N. Ding Darling, I usually use here a 400mm D.O. lens, with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon 7D. (Full Frame field of view equivalent ~896mm)
Bird Pattern In Ice
Posted on March 12, 2020
I am cleaning up some of my old backup drives, eliminating duplicate files and just generally deleting unnecessary files. And in the process, I also found interesting files to post here. I liked ice images I recently saw on Stephen Gingold Nature Photography Blog. I found a series of ice images from about 10+ years ago. So I thought I would post some here. The featured image was a 2 shot pano captured with a Canon 70-300mm DO lens @ 300mm, aligned & blended in Photoshop. Also the featured image was photographed in early morning cooler light. It reminded me of a Bird with the beak to the left.
Multi-Image Staggered Ice focus stack @ 300mm, 1.4x Teleconverter
Lower Section of “bird” Ice Montage @ 235mm
Ice Detail @ 300mm
Ice Patterns @ 300mm
Ice Patterns @ 300mm
