This is a photography blog, but sometimes subject matter themes present themselves at timely moments of the year. As we humans celebrate our holidays by consuming turkeys and other animal life, so too, do the bugs around us consume each other and it is all done in concert with the natural law of the jungle [...]
See Shooting Dragonflies: Show Up, Watch Stuff Happen, Shoot it When it Does (Part 1) here. Shooting Roosters Some roosters startle easily so shooting with a longer lens helps. I use a 70-200mm lens with a 1.4 extender and can fill a frame with a dragonfly from about 4-5 feet away or stand further back [...]
Dragonflies are remarkable subjects to shoot. They come in brilliant arrays and combinations of colors from cherry red to sky blue to emerald and olive greens. Each huge compound eye has up to 30,000 lenses and they see better than any other insect. Their four independently controlled wings flap at 30-80 times per second, which [...]
Raindrops, Dew, and Bubbles: Macro Heaven Climate change has hit hard in most of the nation, but the Pacific Northwest continues to experience even cooler and rainier weather than usual. With the sun behind the clouds much of the time, I took a chance one early damp morning a month ago and ventured out to [...]
Macro photography of flowers and plants can be beautiful all by itself through the lens of a Tony Rizzuto or an Elizabeth Stone. But to me, the presence of a living creature like a bug or spider adds interest, enhances the aesthetics of the images (okay, maybe that’s just me), provokes a reaction (good or [...]
First off, I love my Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 lens. I’ve shot thousands of quality macro images with it, but I began hungering to get closer still and discovered the Canon MP-E lens, which delivers extreme close-up images of up to five times (“5x”) the magnification of the standard macro 1:1 [...]
Career Training 2009 Graduate Steve Russell is back at it. If you immediately associate Steve’s name with his fabulous macro images of spiders, bees and dragonflies, it is for good reason. Steve has been a contributor to this blog for quite a while now, and we’re lucky to have him! Today’s post by Steve is [...]
One exercise that had a lasting effect on me in Elizabeth Stone’s and Doug Johnson’s Intermediate Photography Workshop four years ago was how to work a scene. We learned to shoot from the same spot or shoot a single subject at least eight different ways. In the macro world having the mindset to find eight [...]
Damselflies and Dragonflies are some of the most curious, colorful, and strangest looking creatures I’ve run across in my quest for macro subjects, and also some of the most challenging and rewarding to shoot. I stumbled upon a popular roost for Damselflies in the park earlier this summer and shot them for at least [...]
Following my adventure with bees, I put away the Speedlite, screwed on Canon’s dual macro flash (with diffusers), and haven’t looked back. The versatility of being able to so easily adjust the intensity (exposure compensation) and direction of light along an arc has opened up new possibilities for lighting and clarity in my macro images. [...]
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