more macro

 

09-06-24

Another day in Warriston cememtery with the new 90mm macro lens. In these dark days of terrible weather and near continuous rain, the macro photography has been a lifesaver. Although it can work well in sunshine (more insects come out to play when the sun shines) it can also work fine in overcast weather as the diffused flash provides a soft light. Otherwise it can be a little on the gloomy side, especially when insects hide underneath or behind foliage and vegetation. I haven't given up on butterflies - it has just been a really poor year for them so far, and there hasn't been the usual numbers and species making an appearance. When I see them, I try, as always, to photograph them. But when they are not about I put the macro lens on and search for small things of interest. Usually there is something that fits the bill, although it is not my specialist subject so I am just guessing (and taking advice from google lens) when it comes to identifying them. Any corrections and omissions welcome.

speckled wood - the most numerous of the cemetery butterflies

hovering

The above (very likely Volucella pellucens) is a large hoverfly that hovers in clearings. I was wondering how to take its photo as the camera has a tendency to focus on the background, even when you centre the fly exactly in the middle of the frame. Of course the answer was manual focus. Cameras have had decent auto focus for so many years - all the digital cameras I have ever owned - that I sometimes forget that manual focus is even possible.

The 90mm lens has a manual clutch ring you slide back, to go into manual mode. Because OM Systems and Panasonic kit work together this knocks my camera into manual mode and I would get a picture in picture magnification in my EVF which I found workable but distracting. I have since changed it to full screen magnification with focus peaking in blue which is perhaps overkill but at least there isn't a small rectangle in a bigger rectangle. And when the blue lines hover around the fly, fire away. I now wish I took more of these shots but the flies weren't playing ball and I got distracted by other insects. Work in progress, I'll take more later.

Epistrophe

I found this ladybird (most likely a harlequin) on a rhododendron which I thought would be good for a bright coloured background against the red of the carapace. It wasn't quite as easy as I thought, as it wanted to stay on the leaves and not go near the flowers. And the lower 2 images I should have used a higher number f-stop for larger depth of field. It can be tricky to keep an eye on what the subject is up to, while being aware of how the photos are turning out while you take them.

Hylemya

This fly was staying in the same spot and doing a bit of grooming which made life easier - I had time to get to fleye-level and then get in tight for a close up.

I take loads of pics like this one where a fly has just departed, 

however this one I took just for the mottled markings on the leaf. 

I was getting lost in the middle of a clump of brambles following tiny flies when this (comparatively) huge Large White swooped in and landed on a flower. It stayed for long enough to get a couple of shots. Happily the 90mm is very suitable for taking butterfly shots a few metres away. (Being 180mm in real [35mm] terms.) It flew off before I could get closer but then a GVW took its place which was some compensation.

green-veined white

similarly, a red admiral popped down from a tree to sunbathe briefly

There is something unpleasant about one fly eating another. A little bit like cannibalism. At first I thought they were mating but no, the top one was consuming the lower one. I didn't go in for close-ups, well I did, but I'm not posting them. There's some below when I came upon a second example of this with the same species as well I think. Boke.

a pair of stealth jets at the ready!
(Morellia?)

they did not like me getting in close and made ready to vamoose!

I was really pleased with this photo (above.) When I took it I was mainly just concerned about the gvw being in focus and in the frame. I didn't notice the loveliness of the bud cluster against the blurred background which raises the quality of an otherwise rather average butterfly pic. And there's some cuckoo spit as well. I bet it's not just me that finds this nursery froth a bit offputting. Maybe that's the genius of the frog-/leaf-/tree-hopper. Everyone goes yuck and tries to avoid it. Well no, probably not; because dogs and other uncouth creatures will devour all sorts of unspeakable things without much consideration. I often think when I hear that (for instance) a dog's sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than ours that what is meant is 10,000 times more acute. I don't think dogs are sensitive at all when it comes to what they sniff. 

calliphora vicina?

common bistort

cape fuchsia

some sort of geranium

crows

more cannibalism!

Coenosia? Phaonia?

two anthocoris nymphs bonding over a dead thing

adult Anthocoris

Lygocoris?

Anthocoris nymph

Pegomya?

oncopsis (leafhopper)

Lygocoris nymph

anthocoris

Althous haemorrhoidalis - click beetle

wren

I found this bee holding onto the vertical surface of a gravestone. It looked conked out, the way they often get. Because it was so motionless and not blowing in the wind, it made a reasonable subject for focus stacking. I didn't have any focus stacking software for processing the images, but if I took them I could sort that later. There are 3 parameters you have to choose which will work differently in different circumstances and again like a lot of macro, are not instructions set in stone but options to help you accommodate different scenarios and aperture settings. Basically suck it and see. So I set the distance between focus points around 4 (on a 1~10 scale) and the number of shots to 25 (between 3 and 300 normal) and for the shots to be in order from front to back. (The other option being 1 front, 1 back, 1 further forwards, 1 further back, 1 even further forwards etc.) Just guesswork, and there's nothing to confirm the wisdom of this until you get them into the stacking software!

These 2 photos of the bee were not stacked but taken at f14 so the depth of field is pretty decent.

Helophilus pendulus

as above

wren with crane fly

magpie feather

same

A couple of days later and I saw a youTube video on how to work Helicon, a popular stacking software I had been considering for processing multiple images (each with a small depth of field) into one single image with a larger area in focus. I can manage a 2 or 3 photo stack in photoshop choosing the areas best in focus from each image (and sometimes this is all you need), but when you have 30 or more pics with a tiny difference between each one, then Helicon is the business. It costs about £50 (per year 😭) but I jumped onboard, and it is easier to use than I imagined it would be. I only had a couple of groups of multiple photos I'd taken to experiment with but initial trials are very promising. (They were both handheld and so not perfectly aligned which Helicon seems to cope with.) I think they were in the order of about 25 photos stacked to produce the following 2 photos. Obviously it is best to have minimal shoogle while shooting multiples so resting a hand / camera on something solid like a gravestone while shooting is going to be helpful.

Finally: a dead centipede! I found this in the street outside my front door. Like any normal person I thought yeah! that's coming home! It'll be a good subject for practising focus stacking. I had it on a sheet of A4 printer paper with an anglepoise lamp above. I shot it in focus bracketing mode, (with diffused flash I think) again 25 shots. I have upped this to 36, as you can stop at any time but you can't add more if (as below) you don't get to the furthest back shot of the subject. I was very pleased about the sharpness of the antenna and how well it came out and all joined up without any re-touching. I was probably leaning the camera on my desk as everything is supersharp and there weren't the sort of artifacts and ghosting you can get with handheld photo stacking. I think this it going to be the key to this business - rock solid camera position (and hoping the subject doesn't move), while shooting all the images. If that is the sun is coming out I'm off to shoot millions of stacking images! Watch out hard drive!