photoartflightEastern Amberwing In Our Yard
Posted on July 27, 2022
Lately we have quite a few Eastern Amberwing Dragonflies in our yard. It is fun to watch them flying around in our gardens. For this post I am showing a series of Eastern Amberwing males. All images were taken with a Canon 300mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon 7D.
Banded Hairstreak Butterfly
Posted on August 6, 2020
I was out in the yard looking for macro subjects after the Tropical Storm Isaias. In our community we had a few large branches come down from the strong winds, but nothing too major from what we saw during an early morning walk. We did not loose power, but 40% of our town lost power and close by towns were without power. Apparently it will take days for all power to be up again. A lot of the roads are closed and takes hours to try to get anywhere. Even close by stores are probably without power also, from what neighbors said that tried.
In the yard we found a Banded Hairstreak Butterfly in a Dwarf Alberta Spruce by our front door. I was able to get a few images before it disappeared in the Alberta Spruce. I was using a Sigma 150mm macro with a Canon 2x teleconverter.
Bleeding Heart Panorama & Focus-Stacking For Smoother Backgrounds
Posted on May 12, 2020
After a heavy rain the other day I went out to see if I could find some interesting subjects with water drops to photograph. I wanted to use Image Stacking for more detail in the water drops and main subjects, but still have softer backgrounds. This is one of the first subjects I came upon. I was using a Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens on a Canon R. These are all handheld because it was difficult to get the view I wanted using a tripod. The featured image is 13 images shot from left to right @ f/2.8. Each image in the panorama series is manually focused for the area needed in focus as I shot along the subject to keep a softer cleaner looking background.
8 image handheld panorama focused stacked stopping down to f/11 – giving a much busier looking background
18 image stack @ f/8
8 image Focus Stack – f/16
12 Image Focus Stack @ f/8
9 Image Focus Stack f/5.6
7 Image Stack @ f/8
18 image stack @ f/8 for a much wider focus range.
You Never Know What You Will Find In Your Yard
Posted on April 26, 2020
I was surprised to see these bones under a tree in the corner of my yard. There is a wooded area on the other side of my sidewalk where we used to see a lot of turkeys, deer & foxes. But it is chain linked fenced from the larger woods beyond. The featured image is also a 2 image iPhone panorama.
2 image panorama, assembled in Photoshop, iPhone 11 Pro
Damselfly Panorama
Posted on September 6, 2019
I like using a few different camera systems depending on what I am shooting. Or more likely, what I want to carry & lug around. If I am at a location working near the car, that is not usually a problem. But sometimes I just like walking around, but still want to photograph some interesting subjects that I might come across. Here I am using one of my m43 camera bodies with an adapted old style Canon FD 200mm Macro lens. On m43 cameras it is sort of equivalent (in easy terms) of using a 400mm macro an a full frame body. Instead of going to 1X magnification, because of the crop factor of the m43 system the FOV (Field Of View) is ~2X. This is a 3 image panorama. Luckily the Damsel co-operated for me.
Damselfly – Single Image
Damselfly 4img (overlapping) Focus Stack
Raindrops On Bush – 10 Image Focus Stack
Posted on March 16, 2018
While looking for a photo subject in the yard, I saw these tiny raindrops on a evergreen shrub. It looked like an interesting pattern of raindrops going back into the shrub. I liked the circular dark hole in the background as a distant destination point. Almost like a “black hole” in the distance. I shot a series of 10 images at f/8 in different focus points along a range from near to far for the range I wanted to shoot. Then I opened all the images in Layers in one Photoshop file. Selecting all the layers, I used Auto Align to line up all the drops in the layers. After aligning, I used Auto Blend to combine all the “in focus” sections into one flattened image.
The First Near Focus Image in the Stack.
The Tenth Final Image in the Stack
Pond Bubbles
Posted on April 1, 2014
With the coming of Spring, I cannot wait to get our pond cleaned out from Winter’s leaves and debris, to ready it for the flowers, bugs, Dragonflies & Damselflies. It is my outdoor macro and small critter studio and is amazing what shows up during Spring, Summer and Fall to Photograph. Here are some images from last year.
Closeup Dragonfly Wing – Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro @f/14, 1/13 sec, +0.33 exposure compensation, ISO 640
Closeup Dragonfly Wing – Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro @f/14, 1/50 sec, ISO 640
Common Green Darner, Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, 30mm Extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm Extension Tube, f/8, 1/125 sec, -0.33 exp. comp, ISO 1250
Common Green Darner, Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, 30mm Extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm Extension Tube, f/8, 1/100 sec, -0.67 exp. comp, ISO 1250
Blue Dasher, Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, 30mm Extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm Extension Tube, f/8, 1/250 sec, -0.67 exp. comp, ISO 1250
Hemlock Cones, Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8, Canon 1.4X Teleconverter Series III, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO 400
Bug on Leaf, Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8, f/7.1, 1/320 sec, -0.33 exp. comp, ISO 320
Canon 7D, Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, f/8, 1/320 sec, +0.33 exposure compensation
Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8, f/8, 1/200 sec, ISO 400
Canon EOS 7D, 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DO lens, f/11, 1/320 sec, +0.33 exposure compensation, ISO 320
Blue Dasher, Female, Canon EOS 7D, Canon 400mm DO f/4, Extension Tubes, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter, f/5.6, 1/200 sec., -1.33 exposure compensation, ISO 1250
Flying Blue Dasher, Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm DO f/4, 30mm extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm extension tube, On Camera Fill Flash w/ Better Beamer Flash Extender, – 2.67 exp compensation, f/10, 1/125 sec, ISO 640
Blue Dasher, Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm DO f/4, 30mm extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm extension tube, On Camera Fill Flash w/ Better Beamer Flash Extender, – 0.67 exp compensation, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO 400
Blue Dasher, Canon EOS 1D MkIII, Canon 400mm DO f/4, 30mm extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm extension tube, On Camera Fill Flash w/ Better Beamer Flash Extender, -1 exp compensation, f/8, 1/30 sec, ISO 400
Big Red Skimmer, Canon EOS 1D MkIII, Canon 400mm DO f/4, 30mm extension tube, Canon 1.4X Series III Teleconverter, 20mm extension tube, On Camera Fill Flash w/ Better Beamer Flash Extender, – 1 exp compensation, f/8, 1/30 sec, ISO 400
Closeup Dragonfly Wing – Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro @f/8, 1/30 sec, -1 exp. comp., ISO 400
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