Some more from Wisconsins' Northwoods - part 1

[jrice12]

All were taken with Canon 550D and EF 100mm/f2.8 Macro USM lens. Natural lighting, mostly overcast (at times VERY overcast), in thick woods. Used tripod or tabletop-tripod for all. ISO was 200 for all. Got a total of 18 keepers out of 423 shots. CC wellcome.

1: "A Bridge Too Far". Ok, everybody likes bugs. There were a lot of wasps around the cabin so I took about 50 shots of them. This is the only one that turned out and even then the direct lighting didn't favor it (plus I don't like the disjointed focusing of the legs, though the f-stop was about right to pesent the flower). However, I kept it because of the story it tells with the wasp and flower. Like the flower only being intimated at by de-focus, the wasp is still clearly the subject. The leaf "pedestal" the wasp sits on give nice lines leading to the subject but looks a bit unnatural.

2: Ok, everybody likes frogs. I chased this one all around the woods until it (and I) got tired and stopped. It stayed frozen long enough to set-up with the tabletop-tripod and take a 4 second exposure at f11 (to get the fore-leg and hand... er claw(?) ) - it then darted away with the sound of the shutter closing, so I could only get one shot at this one! The thing was absolutely motionless during that 4 second time (except the usually bobbing of the lower chin thingy which has motion blur). - couldn't believe it. Got a knobby thing on its nose that distracts me - don't know if it is dirt or some vital part of its body(?). The dead leaf at lower left has an unfortunate pattern as it relates to the frog... oh well, can't have everything with one shot!

3: A weird, Quarter sized, fungus that was growing about 5 feet up a tree where a branch sprouted out - looks like something that should be in the ocean not a forest. I loved the look of this thing (whatever it is). The lighting worked out well too, nice shadowing and sense of depth. Like the brightness variation too - almost spotlighted.

4: Mushrooms on a cliff. This set of globe mushrooms have a great texture and we can see the little hole where the spores come out (in a cloud if you squeeze them). They are perched on a small cut-off branch which looks like a cliff. The JPG doesn't do the texture justice here due to the small size of the shrooms (but I wanted the cliff in there...) - the Raw is a knockout.

5: Mushroom Land. Ok, this is a strange looking image, but the colors are as they were when I took it. The dead wood that they are on has a blue/green sheen film on its surface with red/orange underneath (something has disturbed this so we see both). The sun came out long enough to spot-light this patch without lighting the background (no, a flash was not used). I like the overall look of these shrooms in this environment but I think the lighting was a bit too harsh (though much of the "look" comes from that lighting). There is the starts of washout on the stem of the rightmost shroom.

 

[shootermcgavin]

I like 1 and 5, could've maybe cropped 5 down a little. Take a picture of a wasp on a tripod, pretty impressive did you drug him?

 

[pen]

I really like all but the third. Great shot of the wasp and I don't know how you got that on a tripod as well.

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum

 

[jrice12]

I like 1 and 5, could've maybe cropped 5 down a little. Take a picture of a wasp on a tripod, pretty impressive did you drug him?

Sorry about that, the wasp was hand-held. Wish I could drug them, worse than taking pictures of kids! You mean crop down left/right for #5?

 

[jrice12]

Wasp was hand-held, sorry. What is it about the third that you didn't like? Composition? technical issues? Would be interested. I'm always looking to improve things.

 

[dry3210]

1 is very neat. Very nice angle and use of that flower

 

[tpe]

I dont think the legs on the wasp is a problem, total sharpness is overrated and often unnecessary to me. The angle is great and nicely dynamic as the wasp will take off and fly in the direction of the flower. I am not sure that much could have been done when taking it to improve it without any kind of lighting and then the wasp would have probably gone its way etc. I might just blurr the two leaves on the flower stem that are a little sharper than the rest as they take a bit of emphasis from the flower.

Three is very interesting from the subject but it doesn't have a major focus as a picture. The texture is incredable though.

The frog is great, how you managed to get it to stay so still for such a long exposure is very impressive. I like the thing on its nose, it makes the frog for me.

Generally the natural light on them all is really good as are the colours and I am inspired to take a tripod to the woods with me this weekend to see how it goes, normally i end up carrying the same weight in flash and lights so it cant hurt .


Tim

 

[jrice12]

I dont think the legs on the wasp is a problem, total sharpness is overrated and often unnecessary to me. The angle is great and nicely dynamic as the wasp will take off and fly in the direction of the flower. I am not sure that much could have been done when taking it to improve it without any kind of lighting and then the wasp would have probably gone its way etc. I might just blurr the two leaves on the flower stem that are a little sharper than the rest as they take a bit of emphasis from the flower.

Three is very interesting from the subject but it doesn't have a major focus as a picture. The texture is incredable though.

The frog is great, how you managed to get it to stay so still for such a long exposure is very impressive. I like the thing on its nose, it makes the frog for me.

Generally the natural light on them all is really good as are the colours and I am inspired to take a tripod to the woods with me this weekend to see how it goes, normally i end up carrying the same weight in flash and lights so it cant hurt .


Tim

Thanks for the comments Tim. Your'e right about #1 flower - it really needs to be implied rather than explicit - I missed the in focus leaves (my old eyes see everything out of focus .0 I originally liked #3 but over time it has fallen out of favor. I'm still not sure why it doesn't inspire more - perhaps it is too flat from a compositional point of view. If the knobby thing on the frog's nose is part of its ananomy then I am fine with it, if dirt, then I think it needs a bath!

It has taken me a while to figure out lighting generally and natural lighting in particular. Expect to work with long exposure times (the woods are shaded pretty heavily). Use mirror lock-up and two second delay since the exp times will be right at the point where mech vib of the mirror flip can hurt the image (0.1 to 1 second exp is not unusual). Keep an eye out in PP for blue-cast - take a grey card with you. You may need to work with the luminance gamma curve in PP to punch up the images as well. Don't forget a reflector card to help do some fill if necessary. Remember that you can't move the angle of the light so you will need to walk around your subject and condsider the best angle - also, you may have to come back later when the sun has moved etc. Keep your eye open for sun filtering through the leaves above - this can make very interesting spotlighting effects. Consider adding a tabletop tripod, you will be working in very tight spaces and will want ground level views too - these tripods fold up to very small volume and weigh nothing (I keep mine in a little bag with reflector, diffuser, spare battery etc).