My macro journey

[clovishound]

I really enjoyed learning some new things, but it was nice to get back to my comfort zone this morning.

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[CT_Shooter]

Thanks for sharing your talent with us again, CH. You never disappoint. The photo of the spider and wasp is awesome. Wow.

[clovishound]

Well, the wildflower plot in the backyard is winding down. Not many flowers left and fewer and fewer visits by insects.

Here are a few from there and local outings. I'll have to switch to something else to shoot soon.

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[CT_Shooter]

Beautiful shots.

How cool is it to clearly photograph the dust on an insect's antennae? Or the hairs everywhere there's an insect hair.

I love the composition of the sleeping lizard on the dead flower in a field of blossoms and the lighting in the last shot of the wasp's face. Perfect.

Thanks.

[markiver54]

Extraordinary Clovis!
Thank you.

[Hatchdog]

Spectacular for sure. Love the sleeping lizard.

[clovishound]

He's not sleeping, just playing opossum.

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Been getting a lot of anole pics lately, as well as the green tree frogs.

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Despite being on an outing to try out my new flash diffuser, I just had to turn the flash off for this one. Image isn't all that great, but I like the light quality. I need to do more available light shots.

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Another available light the other day. If I had shot this with flash, the background would have been very dark. I really like the colorful background. The down side is I had to open up the aperture which results in shallower depth of field. The right eye of the damselfly could have been sharper. No free lunch.

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[clovishound]

Sometimes you just have to know when to quit. I was out at Cypress this morning, and discovered a wasp's nest that was readily accessible. I got up close and personal and took several pictures. I started to notice that the wasps were beginning to get agitated, so I exercised the better part of valor and moved on. I would have liked to get some more images, as it's really hard to compose when you have a couple dozen small critters all moving around.

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[BrokenolMarine]

Amazing shots my friend, simply amazing.

[clovishound]

I went out to give the car a quick wash this afternoon and discovered this guy on the roof. I dropped the hose and went and grabbed the camera. I wasn't the best background, but I tried to get some angles that wouldn't advertise where I shot it.

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[Hatchdog]

Love that last shot with the head cranked sidewise. “I see you!”

[clovishound]

I've been experimenting with different techniques to control the look of the backgrounds in my macro images. So, I abandoned my flash and used a scrim to diffuse the harsh midday sunlight. This allowed me to have a brighter background than I would have gotten with flash. It also gives a different look to the image. I should have waited until later in the afternoon to get the sun more from behind me, than overhead, but there's always tomorrow. I did position myself so that there were some nice flowers several feet distant from the subject without much of anything else in the frame.

I liked this one, but found the thistle head on the right to be rather distracting.

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I am amazed at what the new remove tool in Lightroom can do with just a few clicks. It works extremely well on removing objects that are surrounded by blurry, amorphous backgrounds.

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[rickhem]

Amazing images, and you definitely have some high level skills to be able to capture them as well as you do.
Thanks for posting these up.

[clovishound]

Went out this morning with the Charleston CNPA group to the Clemson Extension Bee Garden. Very hot and humid, but we had a good time. Lots of flowers and plants as well as a small pond to attract lots of insects, arachnids and other critters. Saw some hummingbirds early, but I didn't get a chance to get any shots of them. Lots of dragonflies around the pond. Those were my favorite.

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[markiver54]

Thank you for continuing to share these wonderful pictures with us.

[Ernie]

It is an amazing world you are sharing.
Thanks

[Hatchdog]

Wow, just wow.

[daytime dave]

Excellent work. Thank you for sharing it.

[clovishound]

This is the biggest visitor to my backyard wildflower plot. I saw him out there late this afternoon and went inside and grabbed my camera. I've seen him out there before, but he has always run away as soon as I was anywhere in the vicinity. This time he tolerated me pretty well. I stopped about 15 to 20 feet away and started taking shots. I gradually inched up taking shots until I was near minimum focus distance, about 6 feet. I got down on the ground to get an eye level angle on him. Fortunately, it was late afternoon and the area was in open shade. Earlier in the day, I would have had harsh full sunlight. I would have like the foliage behind to be further away to provide a blurrier background, but you can't have everything.

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[CT_Shooter]

Beautiful! Love the backlit ears and the hyper sharp focus that extends into the foreground grasses. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find an insect crawling around somewhere in that fur. Thanks for doing that photog-crawl to get these.