Posts in Category: macro
Here’s looking at you: Swamp Spreadwing
After days of rain, on Saturday afternoon we had a burst of sunshine…and promising enough skies so I got the scooter out and did a round of all the local dragonfly and damselfly ponds. It was bug city! And, from the amount of mating activity I saw, the odonata tribe was making up for lost time. I took lots of pics, but I can’t resist posting this one…it just makes me smile. 🙂
It is a Swamp Spreadwing…one of the larger damselflies. They were out in numbers at one of the ponds that feed Back Creek along Route 9 in Kennebunk.
Canon SX50HS. My usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent (1200 optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f6.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Wet Blanket!
Today’s micro theme on #macromonday, is “liquid”, and, since our Super Moon was blotted out by thunder storms last night, and everything in the yard is still soaking wet, I went out early to see what I could find to match the theme. This is Gaillardia…commonly known as Blanket Flower, hence the title 🙂 It is a showy flower under any circumstances, and here the colors, in the indirect light of a foggy morning, are particularly rich. Add the water drops and it qualifies for a wet macro…or a wet blanket.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 24mm macro setting, plus 1.5x digital tel-extender. f3.4 @ 1/30th @ ISO 250. This could not be done without the excellent Canon IS!
Processed in Lightroom. Cropped for composition.
Dragonfly fake-out!
For my last field trip of the Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival in Carrington North Dakota, I went with a small van and a few people to explore the very edge of the drift prairies where they meet the Missouri Coteau…the terminal moraine of the last round of glaciers to scrub the area. Â They call the uplands there Hawk’s Nest Ridge, and it is a unique habitat in North Dakota: A tall hill or small mountain covered in Burr Oak forest. Until European settlers arrived on the prairies of North Dakota any trees were restricted to the deeper river valleys, right along the water…and the only real forest was found on the top of Missouri Coteau…where the Burr Oaks grow.
I was totally delighted to come to an open glade in the Burr Oaks and find it full of dragonflies. I can honestly say I have never seen as many of one species in any one place at any one time. There must have been a hundred of these bright golden, fair sized dragons working the bushes and low growth at the edge of the trees. There were also two Common Green Darners patrolling, and bunches of damsels and dancers in the grass. There was no hope for a shot of the Darners, but I tracked down a couple of the big golden guys who posed just long enough for some photography. I was excited. I was convinced that I was seeing something new to me.
So I got back to the hotel and processed the images in Lightroom. Still excited. Then I began to try to id the bugs. Oh. On closer look they were just Four Spotted Skimmers, one of the most abundant dragons around my home in southern Maine…the first dragon I photographed in Maine this year…and one that I have hundreds of images of already.
I was a little let down, I will admit. There in the clearing in the Burr Oak forest up on Hawk’s Nest Ridge the Missouri Coteau of North Dakota, with the skimmers all around me in the bright sunlight, I thought I really had something new. Four-spotted Skimmers! Who knew.
At the same time, having seen them in that number and in that light, I will never look at a Four-spotted Skimmer quite the same way again. They are a work of art, no matter how common.
Canon SX50HS with my usual tweaks to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom.
Rhododendron Abstract: The Yard
The Rhododendrons in our yard, and on the boarder between our yard and the yard next door, are in full bloom these past few days. The weather was variable yesterday so I got two series of images of the flowers…one in the subdued light of the overcast morning, and one in direct sun, a little after noon. This is from the sunny shoot, and is close enough to turn the image, almost, into an abstract. I like the way the light is just catching on the two anthers and the tip of the stigma, which stand out against the bokeh of the petals in the background.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. In order to create this effect, I backed away and shot at 1800mm equivalent field of view, from about 5 feet. f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Jack-in-the-pulpit: Wild Gardens of Acadia
The Wild Gardens of Acadia at Sieur de Monts Springs is a project of The Wild Gardens of Acadia committee of The Friends of Acadia. It was actually started by a looser group of volunteers before coming under the auspices of the Friends. It has won awards as example of its kind. Within a very small area at the edge of the forest, with a small stream flowing through, volunteers have collected and cultivated most of the native plants of Mt Desert Island and Acadia National Park. The garden is divided by habitat, from stream-side and a mini bog to a mountain top simulation, and covering just about everything in between. From early spring to late fall there is generally something in bloom, and it well enough labeled so that it is certainly a good place to visit if you are interested in being able to identify these plants in the wild.
This is Jack-in-the-pulpit. From the single plants I saw there a few years ago, there is now an impressive stand of these unique and very interesting plants.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. 39mm macro plus 1.5x digital tel-converter. f4 @ 1/50th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
This is one of those shots that is only possible because of the flip out lcd on the Canon SX series. I had to get right down under the plant 🙂
They’re Back!
It has been a long (snowy) winter and a late spring in southern Maine, but the Odonata are finally returning in numbers and variety to our ponds and streams. A few really (unseasonably) warm days last week warmed the waters to the point that dragon and dameselflies are emerging daily now.
This is an extreme tel-macro shot (2400mm) of an immature male Common Whiteface (Plathemis lydia)Â from the sunny parking area at Old Falls on the Mousam River.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, sharpness, and some noise reduction.
Rhodora and the Bee: Acadia NP
Rhodoa, a New England relative of the rhododendron family, was in bloom all over Mt Desert Island…in any damp spot with sun, from hollows in the tops of the mountains, to the edges of marshes in the valleys. I caught this bee making the most of it along the shore of Jordan Pond.
Tel-macro. Canon SX50HS. 1200mm equivalent from 5 feet. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Ascitou Azalea Gardens. Happy Sunday!
The Ascitou Azalea Gardens in Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert Island, just outside Acadia National Park, can, if you hit it just right when the Azaleas bloom, be all but overwhelming. It is a gentle place, well manicured, with a hint of Japan in the stone and water and Azalea plantings. Very designed. Very beautiful.
Click any of the thumbs to open the image full sized.
Canon SX50HS. A mix to tel-macros at 1200mm equivalent, and wide-macros at 24mm plus 1.5x digital tel-converter. Processed, as always, in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought. Man might have had a hand in all the shades and colors of the Azalea, and man certainly had a hand in arranging them in Ascitou Gardens…but the fact is, you can not tame the Azalea. It is a wild plant, full of irresistible vigor and something very close to a will to be. The colors can be bold or delicate, but the live is always vibrant. The spirit in the Azalea will out! And it is, at least for me, the tension between that riot of life, the pure spirit, and our attempts to design and improve upon nature that adds to the wonder of the Azalea. I am always thankful to those patient folks who think they can cage the wonder…because it is so much fun to see the wonder break out!
Emerging Green. Rachel Carson NWR
I went to Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, primarily to practice with my new Panasonic HX-A100 head mounted action camera, but also to see where spring has gotten to along the loop trail. Trillium are still blooming in small numbers, and I found a few Two Bead Lilies open, and many more in bud. There were more visible Lady Slipper plants, but none near blooming. Still a very late spring.
The emerging spruce needle bunchs caught my eye. The contrast of color and texture and form demanded a close up.
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm macro with 2x digital tel-converter. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Wildflowers in the Yard: Spring at Last!
I still have lots of birds to share from my trip to The Biggest Week in American Birding, but I feel compelled to celebrate the late but inevitable arrival of spring in Southern Maine. My wife has been working in the yard, planting and transplanting flowers, but I was mostly interested in the volunteers…the wildflowers of my mossy yard. Spring Beauty is always there, but the clumps this year seem bigger. And I caught a bonus Hoverfly at work in this clump.
The Dog-tooth Violets are blooming in every woodlot, and are even more lush in our sunny yard.
Then you have the Wild Strawberry, another widely abundant plant in Southern Maine, that has made a home in the margin of our lawn.
And finally Cinquefoil, which might be new this year, creeping in from the woods across the road. Both this, and the Strawberry image are littered with fallen petals from our Ornamental Plum.
So, pretty tame by true wild-land standards, but not bad for a yard at the edge of town. And, just so you don’t feel deprived of wild, I will finish with a true wildflower, a Painted Trillium from a lunch-time walk around the trail loop at Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters yesterday noon.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. A mix of tel-macros at 1200mm and wide-macros at 24mm plus 1.5x digital tel-converter. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.