Wildlife Photography across the Water: Worth checking your garden in the evenings

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

Worth checking your garden in the evenings

On Sunday night as dusk was approaching, I took a look around the garden and found a female Orange Tip butterfly settled on one of the bluebells. I went back in doors to get the camera and got these two images.

Both with the 7D , on board fill flash to help freeze any movement due to the breeze.

I have some minor colour variations here with the colour temp. Bluebells are very sensitive to minor changes in colour temperature in processing, and show you when you are not consistent and particularly when you share back to back images like this.

Framed slightly differently between shots so you can see more of the flower in the second shot.

Sadly these are not native English bluebells but the Spanish variant. I will leave them in the garden this year, but they will come out as I have planted native English seeds that I expect will come up next year.

I didn't expect the Orange tip to go anywhere overnight so I went out first thng yesterday morning , with the hope of a heavy dew to add to the atmosphere. Sadly, there was only a very mild dew that can just about be seen.

Again a slightly different crop. I don't normally favour square crops but am reasonably happy with this. I set the camera up with the tripod and the remote release this time, as I knew that the butterfly wasn't going to go anywhere in a hurry, so was able to use live view, manual focus and the 5x viewing facility to ensure critical focus. In conjunction with the DOF preview button and the multi toggle, I was able to ensure that all the critical parts of the butterfly were sharp. This one also used a the fill flash to put some additional light into the shadows.

The final shot was with the 1Dmk111 (no fill flash this time), as the batts on the 7D expired. A more traditional crop here, but in so doing, I lose the bottom flower of the bluebell.

If only the butterfly and bluebell had better proportions relative to each other for photographic balance :-)

Anyway the point of this blog, other than to share a few pretty images with you, and some slightly different approaches to cropping is to check your garden when it is getting towards dusk. If you have any butterflies settling for the evening, then get up early the next day to capture your photos, and if you are lucky you will get some with dew on them, which really does add to the image photographically. You will see some on the last two if you click on the image to enlarge, but not much really.

By the way, female Orange Tips don't have a orange tip on their upper wings, unlike the male, in case you were wondering. I posted the male here last year.

Martin

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.