May 2009 Sightings

[eccles]

Note the depth of field, a DSLR can do it too

Nice pic at 10mm focal length, but there's a touch of magenta/green CA in the full-size shot, Gary. It could do with a bit of PP lens correction if you're going to print it.

I agree on trying to correct leaning perspective, unless the correction is small it looks really weird, and the whole point of shooting wide angle would be lost if you cropped the shot heavily afterwards.

[Jack Harrison]

I'm surprised Gary that you didn't draw our attention to the bottom right corner.

Jack

[FISHiEE]

One from Hod Hill, Dorset a couple of weeks back. Sometimes you don't want too much depth of field



Plenty of detail from a DSLR at 100% also



It's all, about having the gear to do what you wanna do and then making the most of it

[Neil Hulme]

Hi John,
What a beauty! I saw some recently but I was a week or so too late and they had already started getting 'greasy'. That one looks straight out of the shell. Those SPBF should be ready for the treatment soon!
Neil

[FISHiEE]

Thanks Neil,

I was fortunate to be at the site just a couple of days after they started to emerge (thanks to BC regional sightings pages!) so got them at their best. Some were a little worn but they were emerging as I was there and will do so for some weeks to come as I even managed to find one caterpillar (At least I think it was of a marsh Frit) so imagine there will still be fresh ones still to emerge. I think a fresh Marsh Frit is one of the most stunning insects to see in this country... but then probably I say that about most species as the season progresses, (Orange Tips, Heath Frits, Adonis,Silver Studded, Marbled Whites... actually they are all stunning!). Not seen a purple Emperor yet tho!

[eccles]

I snapped this MF at Hazelbury today during a half hour break in the clouds. Despite the rubbish weather there were still three or four flying sporadically along with a few dingy skippers and a single common blue.
Sony A700 with Beercan zoom plus Canon 500D c/u. 1/80 sec F8, hand held. I've got a Sigma 105 macro but I keep going back to the beercan + c/u filter as it's a cracking combo. It has a bit of CA at the edges though so needs the PS lens correcting tool to get the best out of it. But it deals with untidy backgrounds far better than the Sigma macro, as this less-than-ideal placement shows.

And this is a 100% crop. Click on the image for full size.

[FISHiEE]

Excellent shot, especially for handheld at 1/80!

Not sure what the lens you refer to as a beercan is but I'd have thought the macro would blur background more than the other setup? Or does it give greater magnification than the macro?

[Shirley Roulston]

Just took this photo to-day in the garden.

Shirley

[eccles]

Thanks Fishiee. The beercan is a classic 20 year old Minolta zoom. It's 70-210 constant F4 and made almost entirely of metal and glass, and the shape and size is about the same as a 500mm beercan, hence the nickname. Out-of-focus backgrounds, or bokeh, is almost mystical. Some glass has it, others don't. In part it's due to the lens element construction, and in part the aperture blades. The beercan has curved blades which give a round 'hole' at large and medium apertures. But the glass design helps too. It give a smooth creamy bokeh with good transition from sharp to OOF. My Sigma 105 has straight edged blades, giving an octagonal highlight pattern and less smooth transition from sharp to OOF. Also, macro lens designs are based on sharpness, geometric accuracy and flatness of focussing plane, perhaps often at the expense of bokeh. If you get a good separation of background from subject, like in your MF shot then it doesn't matter much as it'll be nice and diffuse anyway. But butterflies don't always play ball...

[FISHiEE]

I guess this emphasizes that point by showing the blade shape/design in the OOF highlights on the dew in this shot. First time I have noticed this before. Gives a kinda cool effect I think in this case

[Neil Hulme]

Hi all,
I spent an enjoyable afternoon on the Downs with Victoria Hume of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre. As she was surveying the area for ancient woodland indices, and hadn't seen Duke of Burgundy before, we decided to join forces. Amongst the 22 Dukes we counted we saw a mating pair, a male nectaring on Common Spotted Orchid, one taken by a dragonfly but the grande finale was yet to come. At first sight I thought it was a very faded 'old boy', but closer examination showed it to be a very rare, extreme form of the aberrant leucodes. It was actually quite fresh and still had a full thatch of thorax hair. The underside was the same, strange, pale coffee colour. The shot below (for comparison) is of a 'normal' male which was sitting a few feet away - and probably at least as old.
Neil

[eccles]

@Fishiee, that's a superb shot, but I don't agree that the highlights help it. It's better than my MF because mine is cluttered anyway, but you see what I'm getting at. I think the mind set of using a macro lens to shoot larger than macro subjects such as butterflies may not always give the best picture. The trouble is, it very often does.

Interesting shots, Neil. Your dark DOB looks a bit unusual too.
What was the dragonfly? (Eccs is a dragon nut... )

[FISHiEE]

Great Shots Neil. You're really picking up this photography lark quickly for a newbie!

I am so envious you get to see and shoot butterflies on a daily basis. I want your job! lol

Also interested in the dragonfly as that's what got me started in Macro in the first place. They are my second passion I am guessing probably a Hairy Dragonfly this time of year?

Dragonflies eating other insects is quite impressive for photos. Dragonflies eating other dragonfiles is more impressive still!

Watched an Emperor hit a Marbled White in flight last summer. That was a mighty impressive sight. Unfortunately it chose to eat it's meal in the top of a tree

[eccles]

Re-reading your post, Neil, I had read that the best DOB site in the country was Rodborough Common in Gloucester. When I went there I didn't see 22 butterflies, or a mating pair, or an aberration. I saw about half a dozen and got bitten by a tick. I think the N.T. need to update their records as your cracking day out shows how out of date they are. BTW, I think your strange butterfly is a speckled wood of burgundy.

[Neil Hulme]

Hi both,
Yes, I'm very fortunate in having all this freedom! I paid the price 'up front' though, as for 7 or 8 years I spent 75% of my life sitting on oil rigs and platforms, sometimes for months at a time, never getting to see a butterfly (or Christmas!). Now I can get out as soon as the sun shines and any work can wait until darkness.

Not sure what the dragonfly was this time around as it was a fleeting glimpse, but Hairy is a good bet. It's a good area for Dragons and there's been the odd Club-tail and Scarce Chaser about, although these were 'not guilty'. Saw an Emperor take a Silver-washed last summer and watched it eat it mid-air, with the wings dropping to the ground one by one.
Neil

[FISHiEE]

Bet there was some cracking fishing to be had on those Oil Rigs though Neil!

[eccles]

On the dragonfly predation subject, I once saw a banded demoiselle catch a white legged damselfly. It just about mortally wounded it, then accidently dropped it and left it. It just didn't have the conditioned reflexes to go and look for its easy meal that it had already caught and disabled. Sometimes nature sucks.

[Matsukaze]

Very happy to see a Small Copper at Sham Castle field, Bath, today - the first I have seen there since the 2007 rains annihilated the population. They also wiped out a strong colony of Common Blue, which have yet to return.

[Jack Harrison]

FISHiEE:

Sometimes you don't want too much depth of field

I had written a couple of weeks ago: "I am of course perfectly happy with out of focus backgrounds" so no disagreement there.

This is a crop from a picture taken with my "Box Brownie" (now on sale for circa £170). The entire Wood White was comfortably within the frame, ie, it's not a super-macro trick.

Jack

[NickB]

..... I did take shots in portrait, and with subject in the centre, but only in the above image, did I get all the things I wanted to encompass in the shot, ( Thrift in the foreground, plus the stone that looks like an old grave, on the right ).
Gruditch

...Without being boring, I guess we are now into the rather techie side of things and no doubt someone (but not me!) will give a tutorial about hyper-focal distances and the ability to get everything in focus beyond that point....

I believe it works for ALL camera/lens combinations, not just a DSLR or Compact (or Box-Brownie!)

N