From the Kitchen Doorstep

As I mentioned recently, photo opportunities have been rare and short.  With that in mind, I have set myself a few 30 minute challenges in the garden to see what I can get.

Pond life has been limited - frogs and newt tadpoles are all growing but pretty boring photographically until they change a bit more.  There are no damsels or dragons at the moment, although it shouldn't be too long before we get a few more.  The next flush of butterflies are also due as well, so it was time to think about a few bird challenges.

So with the wildflower meadow at its highest I had to go for a few shots around the edges.

With a bit of food on the lawn, the little birds like to come and sit on my rustic wonky gate through into the wildlife garden, before dropping onto the food.

Sitting on the kitchen step after my return from work while Jac rattled the pots around making supper, it was a struggle of available light v acceptable ISO but I got these few to share with you that I quite liked.

Back next time with Blackbirds and recently fledged Starlings - cheeky things


PS - Happy Summer Solstice for all our readers in the northern Hemisphere, and for you guys and girls down under - summer is on its way to you now

Martin

Fun in the Sun

There was a big Lacrosse tournament in North Raleigh this weekend and a friend had come down with his son from New Jersey so i decided to cover his team for the 2 days, Boy was it hot, 94 on Saturday and 97 on the Sunday-we actually recorded over 100 in my garden, I took a variety of kit down but ended up using the D3s and 200-400 with the occasional use of the 600, I think its good to have a go at shooting different things, I had never seen or watched lacrosse before so it took a game to really understand what was going on, Its fast and furious and not always obvious who has the ball, One thing that stood out was the amount of camera gear around the playing areas, every mum and dad had theirs and there was a complete lack of understanding on how to use it, I spent alot of my time telling a guy how to use his D3s and 200-400 and then there was a woman with a Canon 60D and 70-200+2x combo who didnt even flip her screen around, When i asked her about her exposure and histogram she said 'whats that?' so there is a good market here for training, Bright light overhead and helmets mean dark shadowy faces and i had to decided on what to trade off in exposure, I set my camera so that the white helmets had some blinkies but overall they came out pretty good, Whilst its not wildlife it certainly was good practice at fast moving subjects in difficult conditions
I set my camera to ISO 400 and had shutter speeds ranging from 1/2500- 1/3200 so plenty fast enough to freeze the action

Thought that i would have some fun in Photoshop with this one

Dave

Sunday Quickie

Well it has been a busy time for a number of things for me of the last week - nearly all of them work related at work or home, so the opportunities to get out and about with the cameras have been limited.Today Jac and I went to the annual Gardeners World Show at the NEC.

One of the things of interest was the WildLife Whisperer stand selling all manner of 'wildlife' stuff.

I was interested to check out their various camera traps that you can check out on their site linked above.

I know Robbie has been trying out one at his home in Shetland.  I guess when you have Otters for neighbours, it is a 'must have'.  I am in two minds for the application in my wildlife garden.  I would expect to get plenty of different cats, and the odd squirrel.  The best is likely to be the Foxes passing through.

  But I am thinking of other applications that might include remote location photography where I could set it up and leave it, and I have a couple of projects in mind.  These will however have to wait for next years breeding season.

There are a number of different specifications on these traps and as always the more you pay the more features you get.   Photo quality is never going to be at the standard we are used to with pro DSLR  + pro lens kit, but as a great way to study wildlife and check out locations for activity, they could have some decent uses.

It would be good to hear from you if you have any experiences of using these.

 

Martin

Creepy Crawlies

My wife called me last night to say that there was  large spider by the back door, I opened the door and there was a large (read very) dark shape in the corner, It looked huge and an oddish shape, I could not see what it was and as i tried to put a plastic container over it i hit its back and BANG an explosion of hundreds of tiny spiders hit the deck, I grabbed a bottle of insect killer and blasted the little ones, Mum ran out with her front legs held high, I didn't want to hurt the female-well any of them really but as we now have our house on the market i did not feel that buyers would appreciate hundreds of spiders running around, Unfortunately mum went where i had sprayed the kids and would not last long, I managed to get her and a couple of the tiny baby spiders in the plastic container and in the freezer she went, Today i let her thaw out and straightened here legs on my kitchen set up, I managed to get one of the tint babies in the image, They were so small that i could not tell if it was upside down or not until i had taken a shot, The female was the biggest spider that i have seen here, We have an exterminator come to out house and spray chemicals to get rid of all the nasty bugs that live in the area so i am guessing that if i had not managed to kill her she would not have lasted long
So again i used the D7000 with the Sigma 150mm macro and a 32mm tube, Tripod mounted and with 2 flashguns

Dave

A few more from the Local Patch

As I mentioned here a couple of days ago, we took a quick wander out to our local patch to see what was around.

It was definitely 5 Spot Burnet day as there were dozens of them, either in singles, pairs mating or three just having a chat.

Last year this site was fantststic for the beautiful Marbled White butterfly.  Only a few early ones were out and we maanged to see a couple, although they were pretty flighty so I had to grab this one from a bit away so it is cropped more than I would prefer.

Here is one of them on an Ox Eye Daisy

Martin

Sigma 150mm Macro

I mentioned before that my Sigma 180mm macro lens had gone in for an update and that the update is not yet ready, Sigma kindly offered to loan me a 150mm macro until they can update my 180 which could be months, True to their word the 150mm arrived, A couple of days before it arrived we found a largish spider in our house-dead-it was a wolf spider, It had a couple of legs missing which may have been down to the dog but apart from that it was in good condition, I said that it was a shame that i didnt have the macro lens and my wife suggested that i put it in a container and keep it in the freezer until the lens arrived which i did, I made a makeshift studio in my kitchen by putting some white paper on the work surface and curving it up and sticking it to the tiles, I put the Sigma 150 on the D7000 along with a 32mm extension tube for extra magnification, I set the lens to 1:1 and moved the rig forward until it came into focus, I shot at ISO 100 and set the aperture to F11, I tried it with 1 flashgun on a cord at various angles but the shadows just did not look right so i put a flashgun either side of the lens and had a SU800 transmitter on the extension cord so that it could 'see' the flashguns, 1 flashgun had a large diffuser on it and boy did that make a difference, the light was really nice and soft, covering the spider and background, I can tell you one thing-That it one sharp lens, Sigma has discontinued the 180mm macro and has just updated the 150 to include image stabiliser-should be a cracker
I would like to thank Sigma for the loaner and can highly recommend their macro lenses

 Dave

Lunar eclipse tonight

Except for North America-DOH
See Here

Three Orchid Night

Yesterday was a very hot hot day, or at least by recent standards.  So with that in mind, I expected it to bring forth new species and we took a little wander round one of our local patch sites last night after supper to see what was emerging. 

Well the most numerous species were the newly emerged Five Spot Burnet moths.  I will bring you some of these in the next blog but suffice to say, we gave up mentally counting once we got to fifty.

As well as new sightings of Meadow Brown, Ringlet and Marbled White butterflies in this location, I was pleased to see all three orchids species at this location in bloom.

 Common Spotted

 Bee

Pyramid

Well it has been a good year for numbers of orchids locally but the specimens themselves have been quite poor.

There is a view that the incredibly dry spring, in particular during May, which has resulted in small and stunted blooms.

Oh well - till next year then

Martin