Rain forest Macros and Landscapes

The rest of our time at Evergreen Lodge in Tortuguero, we spent photographing macro subjects with off-camera flash and utilizing a led flashlight to help illuminate the subjects.  We also went down the boardwalk into the rainforest to photograph landscapes.  Besides standard landscapes, we experimented with blurs and zooms.  It was a great time even with a drizzle.  Practicing different techniques help create interesting photographs for our portfolio.

Spider on Leaf Illuminated from beneath

Spider and Web

Tree Crab

Lizard Illuminated from below

Tree Crab Peeling a Leaf to Eat

Treefrog

Grasshopper

Landscape in the Rainforest

Rainforest with Blurry Water

Zoom Blur

The Rainforest

Rainforests Abstract Blur

Around The Yard Macro

Since there is a possibility of heavy rain, thunderstorms and flash flooding today, exactly where right now is unknown.  If there are thunderstorms in the area, I will try to track them down and do some photography.  Meanwhile, I decided just to do a little bit of macro photography around my condo area.  My thought was rather than creating images with a lot of depth of field, that I would use a large ISO which would give me a very shallow depth of field and see what I could create.  I utilized Nikon D7100, Nikkor 105mm micro lens, handholding, with an f-stop 3.5 and a shutter speed of 1/4000, hopefully this should freeze the very slight motion that there was in the flowers.  The ox-eye daisy had a number of different flies on them.  There was a green bottle fly and a thick legged hover fly.  I processed one of the daisy photos in the style of the impressionistic painters.  So go out, think out-of-the-box and see what you can create.

Ox-Eye Daisy Processed in the Impressionistic Mode

Ox-eye Daisy With Green Bottle Fly

Thick Thigh Hover Fly

daylily

Return to a Favorite Spot

Northern Spreadwing

As I have been reviewing my pictures in my Lightroom catalogue, I noticed that this year I have not taken any pictures at one of my favorite spots, Tamarac Park in Lakeville, Massachusetts.  Waking early this morning, I gathered my macro equipment and drove down to the Tamarac Park.  A friend of mine, Linda, had arrived before me, but decided she wanted to try a different area to photograph.  One reason I want to get down there early was to be able to photograph the insects and spiders before they were warmed up by the sun and became more skittish.

What was interesting is that I found a new species (for me) of a damselfly, Vesper Bluet, the only bright yellow bluet in the Northeast.  Also, there was a large number of different spreadwing damselflies along with the usual dragonflies that are found in this area.

Vesper Bluet

Lyre-tipped Spreadwing plus Slender Spreadwing

There were a number of harvestmen, which belong to arachnoid family and are in the order Opiliones.  One of the harvestmen had mites on its body.

Harvestmen with Mites

Harvestmen

There was a beautiful stand of Turks Cap lilies, one of the plants had multiple flowers on it.

Turks Cap Lilies

Turks Cap Lilies

In the beetle family, I found milkweed beetles mating and a lone Japanese beetle.

Milkweed Beetles Mating

Japanese Beetle

What was missing this morning was any of the Lepidoptera.  Not a butterfly or a moth was seen in my travels.

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Macro Fun

Seaweed

It is the first of the month, in between cleaning up my desk and doing paperwork I decided to do some macro photography, utilizing a light-box (I purchased this at Micheal's arts and crafts).  I learned this method at a Mike Moats Macro Boot Camp www.MacroStoreOnline.com .  Usually when I am out, especially on a beach and I find interesting objects, I will take the object home to utilize and doing some macro work at home, especially on days where you really cannot get outside.  Although the day was nice and I could've been outside, I did have to finish up the paperwork.

Lightbox

My methodology used  my D800+ Nikon 105 mm micro lens, manual focus, mirror up mode, and a wired remote.  Although with the D 800, the wired remote does screw into the socket, I have had the wired remotes come loose and fall and get lost.  To prevent this from happening I have purchased a Tether Tools JerkStopper Camera Support from Outdoor Photo Gear (click on logo on the right side of the blog.

Set up

Tether Tools JerkStopper Camera Support

 After uploading the pictures into Lightroom, bringing the highlight slider up, so the background is white and performing minor basic adjustments, the picture was uploaded to Photoshop, the layer duplicated, a level adjustment was done to make sure white was white and then with the magic wand, I selected out the object that was photographed.  The object was placed in its own layer and then adjusted with Topaz Clarity and Detail.  I then cropped the picture to appropriate size and re-imported the picture back into Lightroom.

Interesting creatures on seaweed

Lady Crab

Spider Crab

Jingle Shells

Shell covered with barnacles

Welk

Previously, I had done the same thing to other objects, which are labeled with their common and scientific name in Photoshop with the intent, being that they could be used as teaching material.When I have a chance I will do the same to the new pictures.

So if the weather is bad and you have time on your hands try this method and have some fun.

Yum!!! It Is Dinner Time

Ruby Meadowhawk Feeding

The other day, returning home from photographing mushrooms around my condominium complex, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a red dragonfly with a very white face flying around.  It landed in the grass in front of me and I collapsed my tripod, so I could get down to eye level with the dragonfly and it did not fly away like they usually do.  I took one picture, looked at the histogram to see if I had the right settings and also viewed the picture and saw that the dragonfly was eating an insect.  I obtained a series of pictures, and after importing them into Lightroom and viewing him on my screen, I saw that the dragonfly had captured a small Lepidoptera, probably a moth and was happily eating its dinner.  The dragonfly had scales from the wing of the lepidoptera all over its face and eyes.  Well, you never know what you are going to find when you go out photographing. By the way,I ID the dragonfly as a Ruby Meadowhawk.

Ruby Meadowhawk Feeding

Ruby Meadowhawk Feeding

Close to home

Hornet

Remember, you do not have to travel far to find subjects to photograph.  Around your house and around your yard, there are many subjects that are interesting.  Over the past few days, I have been photographing birds, mammals and insects around my condominium.  Nothing rare in birds of mammals, but, I have found new to me species of insects.  A Silver Spotted Skipper was feeding on my bee balm and an interesting wasp, A Thin Waisted Wasp was feeding today on flowers just outside my door.  Keep your eyes open and enjoy what is close to home.

Silver Spotted Skipper

Black-capped Chickadee on a perch above a feeder on my porch

Tiger Swallowtail feeding in a flower

Yellow Jacket

Thin Waisted Wasp

Silver Spotted Skipper