The Butterflies are still around

Last weekend saw Comma, Large White, Small White, Peacock, Meadow Brown and Common Blue still coming into the garden.  It will be interesting to see when the last records of each of these will be this year.

I got a few of the Common Blue to share with you, and use these examples to show a technique that I use a lot, and that I have mentioned before.

Get your first shot in while you are not anything like as close as you want to be.

Then get a bit closer and get a couple more, then do the same and then the same again.

You never know when you are going to scare your subject so a gradual approach means you slowly get an improving shot.

What this also shows in the wider shot is the habitat - in this case Birds Foot Trefoil, with both flower and seed heads.  Now the first is very messy, but the approach I have used shows that you can work your background, and of course the closer you get, the better the depth of fields effects become, throwing more of the clutter out of focus for a more pleasing perspective.

Both taken with the 5D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro.......as usual

Martin

Local Patch - catching up

May, June and July have been very busy months for me photographically.  As you will have seen by my posts these days, macro or at least close up photography, to be more technically accurate, is one of my favourite genres.  These last three months have been wonderful in the garden, around the pond and at my local patch.  So much so, that I have many blog posts worth of images that I haven't shared with you.

So going back to the start of June, Jac and I took a trip to our local patch to check out the progress of the various orchids there, and had some great sightings of moths and butterflies when we were there.

On a warm and still evening, we timed it to perfection as it had clearly been the turn of the Common Blue butterflies to take to the wing.  I gave up counting when I got to 100, and being very fresh, they were not inclined to clear off when you got too close to them.

Common Blue (female)

Common Blue pair (male on top)

Burnet Moth Caterpillar

Cinnabar Moth

Dingy Skipper Butterfly

Lattice Heath Moth

All of these were taken with the 5D and Canon 180 f3.5L macro lens, generally with a bean bag or hand held.

I do miss the live view and self cleaning sensor on the 'old' model, but do love the full frame DOF effects that you get compared to the 1.6 or 1.3 crop bodies.  

Maybe I should have stock sale and get the newer 5Dmk2, before they go and bring out a new one and ramp the price up disproportionately.....again.

Martin

Local Patch - Orchid Progress

As promised a couple of days back, I said I would bring you some orchid images.  At my local patch where I reported that the Bee Orchids got decimated last year, it is great to see that the mowers have stayed away.  The only difficulty that brings is with all the long grass it can be difficult to get clean shots.

The first of the Common Spotted started to appear with stems at the end of May.  This first image below was taken on June 2nd

Many have been in the open, but a few hide quite nicely in the deeper growth of wild flowers.

It is still early days for many of them as you can see here.  So I reckon they will be at their best this weekend and next week for the Spotteds (The 2nd, 3rd and 4th images were all taken this past weekend)

The Spotted, i.e the Dactylorhiza forms do a lot of cross breeding and hybridisation, and so you see many forms and colour variations.  As you can see from this previous image, it is quite different from the one before it.

It has been great to see many of the Bee Orchids  Ophrys apifera coming up.  Last year there were also some bi colour forms present but there are currently none in that area, but I will check again soon.

This stem is probably the most advanced at the site, with plenty of others just coming up such as this next one.

I also checked out the Pyramidals too, Anacamptis pyramidalis.   There are quite a few coming up in their very early stages.

This is probably the most advanced stem I found.  So again I will be following their progress and getting a further set of images.

I did check out another location where Wasp Orchids are also recorded each year but there was no sign at all.  So I will keep my fingers crossed and take another look at the weekend.

All images were taken with the new 'old' 5D and the Canon 180 macro lens.  I really do love that macro lens, and I also love working with the 5D again.  Full frame is very nice, and as Dave mentioned recently, the DOF effects are really quite excellent without a crop sensor.  I think a 5Dmk2 beckons.

As I type this blogpost on Tuesday evening for posting tomorrow, I have just switched on my moth trap.  I mentioned back here that this was a forthcoming project,  Well I got the electronics last week, built it over the weekend and finished it off tonight.  It seems like a good evening weather wise for it, so I will see what we can bring in.  I will do a more detailed blog with construction pictures, and share some of the pitfalls and share a few tips if you want to have a go at this yourselves.

Finally, check back in later this evening as I will update this with some Southern Marsh Orchid images that have come out at work, so I will get some images at lunchtime, and upload them for you to see.

Update:  As promised a couple more images for you, fresh out the camera from this lunchtime.

One of 92 stems I found of Southern Marsh Orchid at my work site.  I am sure I missed a few others as well.

One in 100.

Ok I know it is "another" Common Spotted, but this single stem was growing on its own as a species with the hundred Southern Marsh orchids I saw today, so I thought it right to include it.  Tricky bright harsh midday sun but an A4 pad used as a reflector helped balance out the exposure a little.

Martin.