E's Macro's

Late, as usual, but in nonetheless. Here are my macro shots for last month's theme: The bottom image is of a lynx (?) spider in Isimangaliso (Side lighting from a single flash with a home-made softbox), Middle image, fly in the same field a month later with the same lighting setup and the top image of two mating locusts is in the Drakensberg...lighting is curtesy of a passing cloud to soften the harsh sun. All shot with a 105mm macro lens, bottom two on a tripod, top, handheld. One thing i quite like about the bottom two is hte mix of flash and ambient. I purposefully stretch the exposure past handheld limits. The flash captures everything in sharp focus but occasionally there is a slight halo blur around the edges of legs etc. which creates the impression of movement (most obvious in the spider shot) and also allows some of the ambient light to bring colour to the background rather than the tell-tale 'blackout' of a flashed macro shot. Any c and c always welcome.

Cheers
E

Documentary Style Photography

Ok – something new after all the excellent wildlife photography! I have very little experience of documentary photography, an area I want to explore more in the new year. Anyway, here are three documentary style pictures shot over the last 18 months – what do you think? I guess Paul is the expert here, comments? I have used PS – normal stuff, levels, curves etc – but have also sharpened and boosted the contrast of the eyes in all these shots, and obviously converted one to B&W.

The B&W image is of a cane cutter in KZN, the child was photographed last week at Fort Brown (having lunch!) and the other chap is a farm labourer from Gariep.

Cheers,

Neil.

Sharp enough or not???

Dear all, panning is not my greatest skill and I haven't shot many panned photos. Now I did one but don't really know what is acceptable or not in assessing sharpness levels in a panned photo. I would like to ask you for your opinion: Is this photo sharp enough or not? Is this photo good, okay or rubbish?

Kind regards,

Nick

The past two weeks were good for me in terms of photography

Here we are again... The photos from my previous post were photos taken before I knew about the macro theme. Yet I felt that with this new theme, I should actually be encouraged to go out and specifically shoot some macro stuff to practice. Especially since I bought a second hand macro lens a few months ago that I haven't used much yet. So here some shots of the past two weeks.

Leaf mantid nymph, 55 mm macro prime lens, an old bugger with an aperture ring and no light meter... But good optics! F 3.5, 1/20 sec, ISO 125 Weather: cloudy and rainy. And some determined hot pursuit mode as these insects have the habit of mimicking a twig moving in the wind. Can you imagine me whispering "For heavens sake, sit still for a moment please!" while adjusting aperture rings etc. while that thing obviously keeps on rocking back and forth....

Parasitic wasp with caterpillar that it is about to bury. Not such a fantastic shot perhaps, but I like the 'unique animal behavior' shown here.

Tech specs: 100mm F2.8 prime lens, Old bugger too, aperture ring set at F8 if I remember correctly, 1/800 sec. Bright sunny weather. But then I wanted to hang myself when I found out I forgot to turn the ISO down and was shooting ISO 400, and then the wasp was just finished burying his prize and flew away... No wonder you could shoot at 1/800 sec... Idiot!

Once again a not so special shot, but for me a first of a close up macro of a flower. Never really done flowers before, but they can be quite nice. Will practice these things more. Advice please... I don't know yet what I am doing...

Tech specs: that macro lens again aperture set at 3.5 or 5.6. 1/160 sec. ISO 400. Flower in heavy shade

I know, super cliché, everybody has such a shot, but I still like it. Game drive vehicle in eye of impala. 70-300 VR lens set at 300, F5.6 1/60 sec. ISO 200 Sunny day but yet a little fill in flash.

Don't even know whether this falls under macro as this shot is also taken with the 70-300 VR lens, set at 116mm F7.1 and 1/160 sec. Bright sunny day. But I like the metallic shine of the beetle that is so clearly visible in this light.

Well, whether the images are good or not, I leave that up to you to decide (and please let me know so I can learn), I enjoyed putting a lot of effort in this months theme. Looking forward to seeing your macro shots too.

Nick again.