Category: Insects

The Good and the Bad of Big Glass Depth of Field

Greetings all! I am finally getting back on my feet after the month from hell. Once all the adrenaline and excitement wore off from the race and party I started realizing what a toll it all took on my body. Even with my customary week off relaxing (yep, no running, and no work on Project Auuunoold) I still couldn’t shake the aches and pains. The next week started and I was beginning to get concerned. Figured I’d start the rebuilding process this week … back on the core to get the body fixed up and stretched and a little biking for cardio is starting to work their magic. Still not ready to run yet but due time, due time. In the meantime, thought I’d toss out a quick post.

Tonight’s topic is that very tricky subject of Depth of Field (DoF). To be honest, this is one of those photography topics I am trying to get a better understanding of – primarily because I’m constantly fighting it out in the field especially with the Beast. My quick and dirty definition of DoF is the measurement of how much distance will be in focus (sharp) for a given set of exposure, glass and camera specs. I still have a lot of learning to do on this subject so there will not be any expert advice here – I’ll certainly come back on this subject once I get read up on it some more. The good, or the bad depending on your point of view, is that you can see the effect pretty easily.

Take a look at some shots from a shoot Linda and I took back in July. We were out at Jubilee and due to lack of birds was spending my time on anything else I could find that had wings.

So there I was with my standard birding setup which consists of the Beast (200-400mm) coupled with the 1.4 Tele on the D7000 (1.5 crop sensor).  These shots were taken at around the 3.6 to 3.8 m range hand held… and people wonder why I continually workout.  These dragonflies were all over the place darting to and fro so I decided to get a little small subject focusing practice in.  When the subject is smaller than the central focus region, the glass tends to walk a lot, especially the long glass.  So there I stood happily shooting away.  That happiness lasted until I got home and started assessing the output.  Notice anything glaring wrong with the first shot?

The right wings are nice and crispy, but what the hell is up with the left side?  Was that particular wing moving at the time … doubtful, they tend to move both sets of wings in unison from what I have experienced and the 16oo ISO would have compensated for that anyway.  The problem is in the focus parameters.   My depth of field is not encompassing the full thickness of the subject.

I was fighting the glass to keep it on target and firing away on fast multi-shot so there were plenty of other examples to explore.  Hit the jump to see more examples of DoF.

Continue reading The Good and the Bad of Big Glass Depth of Field

Night Dwellers Part 3 – The Big, The Hairy and The Scary

So last post we brought out the big guns and showed you what the 200-400 Beast is capable of pulling in.  To contrast that, I figured I’d go all the way in the opposite direction and feature the 105 Macro glass for this post.  And the best picture opportunity for the Macro is?.. you guessed it, my porch.  Continuing the Night Dweller themed posts (here, here and here), I bring you the latest set of arachnids found late at night out here in the Midwest country.  Thanks to our toy poodles we often have the opportunity to check out the creatures that visit our house late at night.  As of late, the spiders look like they’ve been on a steroid kick resulting in some rather large specimens.  One night I stumbled on this huge spider and ran for the camera.

It always creeps me out a bit when looking through the macro glass.  The unassisted viewing reveals enough features to make your heart skip a beat, but add the full blown macro magnifications and it’s like you’re staring at creature from a bad B-Horror movie.  So there I was laying the ground taking pictures of this spider when a large moth dropped out of nowhere in striking distance from a natural predator.

This might get very interesting.  Both subjects remained very still which might have been due to my presence potentially interfering in the survival of the fittest experiment.  The small macro depth made it difficult to get both creatures in focus but it did create a nice effect.  (Yes, I had to manually fix the moth due to pet eye, but for my first attempt ever at it Photoshop it turned out pretty good).  After about 10 shots, there still wasn’t any movement between the two.  It reminded me of an Old West quick-draw, each waiting for the other to flinch.  Low and behold, another visitor showed up to take part.

The first thing that came to mind was the Mexican standoff from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  Unlike the Eastwood show, only one of these competitors had a loaded gun in terms of a bite and venom.  Now I am officially way beyond the  field depth for an eye level view so I moved up higher in an attempt to bring a little more focus into the shot.  The Opilione (or as we call them around here – Daddy Long Legs)  and Moth are still on the wrong end of this fight for survival, unless they can team up – maybe the moth does a 360 maneuver to land on top of the spider while the Harvestmen (another common name for the Opilione) pokes the spider’s eyes out with its long legs.  Although this might be more difficult that choreographed since the Harvestmen can’t make out images with their eyes and thus have to use the second set of legs as antennae to navigate the world.  Come for the pictures leave with trivia – what a deal!

By the way, I generally try to provide some reference for size since the macro has the ability to distort reality.  There was no way I was going to stick my finger in that mess.  Instead I tried to get the old standby penny visual in, but even that proved difficult due to my reluctance to get real close to the wolf spider.  Here is the best I could do … sorry!

I have a lot more pictures of our eight legged friends after the jump (if you dare)- most of them have the more traditional macro shots showing them up close and personal.

Continue reading Night Dwellers Part 3 – The Big, The Hairy and The Scary

I Hope It is Worth It

First off, Happy Birthday Ron!

Okay, we’re down to the final hour with all the marbles on the line.  Let’s do a quick check 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …. 5…. oh crap, I’m down a post.  What to do, what to do.  Actually, there are no worries, I have been loading up my SmugMug site with a ton of pictures.  One of my recent favorites is a set of macro shots I took on our porch a few months ago.  I was was walking on the porch one sunny day when one of the more interesting insects decided to take a stroll on my siding.

Probably out of the insects I come upon around here, the praying mantis is the one that fascinates me the most (the stick bug comes in a close second).  From a photographer’s perspective, they have a nice vibrant color and a ton of cool features that pop out nicely under the macro lens.  They have a number of dynamic features ranging from the hook like feet, highly articulated legs and fine hairs running along the edges.  The best part of working with these specimens is that they are fairly docile and do not tend to panic at the presence of a camera glass shoved close to their face.  Speaking of which, this one was practically posing for the glass.

In case you are wondering, in this particular shot he is gnawing on his own foot.  Check out the creepy pupils.  They can track just about anywhere around the eye bulb and basically remained on me the entire time, regardless of what position or angle the camera was in.  Here is another on of the face with the pupils transitioned up to the top of the head.  Based on nature’s law, typically, animals with such range of vision are considered the prey where the more forward fixed animals fall in the predator range.  By that rule, one would think the mantis was somewhat docile, but the male mantis probably has a different opinion of that seeing as how the the female rips the cranium off of him after mating.

hit the jump for more shots!

Continue reading I Hope It is Worth It