Tiny Frogs Return
Such a long time since I posted anything, but a good way to begin again is with a favourite subject – some images of Litoria ewingii, Southern Brown Tree Frogs, sitting on Hydrangea leaves just outside my back door in the rain.
These are tiny creatures, less than 2 cms in length, and young ones hatched this season. The fly just happened to be sitting there………
Aquilegia
Aquilegia, Granny’s Bonnet, or Columbine – makes no difference to me, they remain one of my favourite plants and this garden is full of them. I love their elegant shapes and gorgeous colours.
These were all taken with the 5D and a 100mm macro lens. Click on any image to make a slideshow.
Spider Trails and Raindrops
There has been a lot of rain here, everything saturated this morning, but lots of spider trails lit with tiny water drops, like fairy lights!
RED!!!
Bought a bunch of gorgeous Gerberas to celebrate the first day of Spring!
Macros – 5D Mk III, 100mm macro lens.
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Focus
This week’s challenge was to take photos to demonstrate the different depths of field one obtains using different apertures – ie shallow depth of field with a wide aperture or the reverse, greater depth of field with a smaller aperture. I actually showed this a few posts back – here – as it had been something covered at our local photo club. None the less, today I spent some time using my macro lens to shoot the same subject ( the fruiting bodies on a pot of moss ) with a range of apertures from f/32 to f/2.8, giving very different results in terms of background sharpness and detail. Personally for this type of photo I prefer a soft blurred background – the very sharp one has too much confusing detail!
f/2.8
f/3.5
f/13
f/32
Final NT Photos
These following shots were all taken at the Desert Springs Wildlife Park in Alice Springs where our group had several sessions learning about capturing birds in flight, macro and low light photography plus many other techniques. There was a walk through aviary, a free flight display with several bird species and a section with reptiles and small desert creatures. Our tutors were great – well informed, experienced professional photographers, friendly and patient. I would thoroughly recommend any of their workshops and hope to do another one in the future. For information about Trekabout Photography Workshops follow the link. As usual, click on any photo for a larger image and screenshow.
A Useful Aperture Exercise
At one of the recent meetings of our new Camera Club in my town, we spent an evening discussing the basics of photography – aperture, shutter speed, ISO and the like for the benefit of some beginning photographers. We were asked to take two images to illustrate focal depth resulting from different f.stops. These were mine – some tiny fungi that had grown on firewood in the woodshed. Taken using a 100mm macro lens, and the clever in-camera natural looking HDR mode of the 5D MkIII giving perfect exposure for the whole image in natural light.
A very sharp image from front to back – f/20
Fungi – f/20
An image with very shallow depth of field – f/2.8
Fungi – f/2.8
For those who might need a little visual reminder, this diagram shows the relationships discussed above.
Diagram found on Google, copyright of http://www.momentologyphotography.com/
WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Curves
A while ago I purchased, very cheaply, several broken mechanical watches on eBay, specifically for the purpose of taking some close ups of their innards – these are a few of them. I think they have a certain beauty, and also meet this week’s brief of Curves.
First Day of Winter
There has been over 60mm of rain in the last few days, most of the leaves have gone from the deciduous trees and the garden is beginning to look a bit bare. Few insects are around, and there is not much to photograph. The roses still have a few blooms though, and these photos were taken over the last week or so. Still practicing……this time with the 100mm macro to focus on water drops.
Ladybirds
I’ve been rescuing Ladybirds again. I think they come into the house on firewood somehow, perhaps they are hiding in crevices or under the bark, but I am never aware of them at the time. Then they must emerge and fly towards the light, as I find masses of them on the window screens, or around the widow edges. There is a wonderful website about them if you are interested – HERE. Today I must have caught and removed at least 25 of the little beetles and released them onto my large pot of moss that is often use as a background for photography. Of course I then had to take some pictures before they flew away. Here are a few……..
These are all taken with my usual Canon 550D and the wonderful 100mm macro lens and tripod.
