Wisconsin's North Woods - Part 2

[jrice12]

Some more images from Up North. All shots with Canon 550D and EF 100mm/f2.8 Macro USM lens.

First: No its not a Hawiian lava eruption, its peeling birch bark backlit by direct sunlight. I liked the circles of confusion in the background and how they went from green to blue. Was at ISO 200 but think I see some grain in the background. Was hot out so maybe camera noise was higher than normal(?).

Second: Fungus Grass. Been trying to find Macroscapes, very small spaces that appear larger. Here we see moss on a tree stump and I think the brown stems are the way they propagate(?). After setting up several of the brown stems in the same focal plane, I didn't quite get the focus right - I think the little tabletop tripod I was using might have moved slightly and I didn't catch it. Not trusting the view-finder, I use live-view with x10 on the display for focusing and this usually works great, but I should problably check the final image while still in the field. The size of the image is 1:1 (about 1" across).

Third: I wasn't going to do anymore bees, but the opportunity was too great . Don't really like the head-on perspective but this one was well isolated and nicely placed on the flower which itself holds interest. Was at ISO 800 and f2.8 and probably should have been deeper, but wanted as fast a shutter speed as I could get. I am finding that I get more images in focus if I use my body as a kind of macro rail for focusing instead of the focus ring. Still new at this and learning...

Fourth: Ditto. Thought the bee was stinging the pedal but I think it is the "foot". Sure has a lot of orange pollen on its legs. Another example of a good background allowing the bee to come through. Don't like the spider web at top of flower, was thinking of PS it out(?). Flower comes out of the de-focused background nicely (not that I did any composition while chasing bees...)

 

[tyler_h]

Like the second and fourth the best.

The oof green in the bottom left hand corner of the second is a little annoying though; it takes a fair space and doesn't really contribute to the image in my opinion. If the background was more consistently green it would help the brown stand out too I think.

The composition works well in the fourth image. A fair number of people tend to photoshop out small bits of spiders webs, mainly when the background is darker as they stand out a lot. It's just a judgement call. They are not real distinct to detract from the subject here but it is a simple job.

 

[jrice12]

Thanks for the comments - well thought out! The oof green at lower left of #2 was an effort to break the pattern along the bottom of the image and to give a depth queue. It also gives a base for the little stand of green shoots at the left (which make an almost normal angle with the oof green hump). I actually went through some effort to get that . It's size is a bit much though and it does distract a bit - slightly different camera angle may have worked better - also a little less out of focus might have helped. The brown stems were to be highlighted by the sun where they take on a bit more yellow orange - almost glowing (but that didn't seem to work out well here). The middle set is close but the right pair is not glowing much at all! I have been trying to form these "macroscapes" but they never really turn out like my imagination sees them. The idea is to not have a single, macro-type, "subject" to study but rather a "landscape", but these are unfamilar to our normal perception of what a landscape is and so I haven't found anything that can "connect". Oh well....

You may be right on the web, now that I look at it without zooming in, I see it is not that predominant - in fact it is pretty subtle.

 

[tyler_h]

Yeah, I like the macroscapes concept but I think dof is a fairly large hindrance to getting the viewer to perceive it as a landscape. You mention a tripod so you could try focus stacking and see if that gets you closer to the final image you have in your head. Then the green hump can become a small hill which is in focus.

 

[jrice12]

Have done focus stacking for this. See thread "Focus Stacking - Not Just For Insects" from a few days ago. Second image is macroscape that was stacked while the third is the same image not stacked (but different camera orientation and lighting etc).