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The Green Dragonfly is some sick colour contrast. Honey Bee Flight by Aves Lux, on Flickr jarlywarly fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jul 3, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2021 22:03
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jarlywarly posted:The Green Dragonfly is some sick colour contrast. I was gonna say. Great pictures all around, lately.
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Jun 23, 2021 23:35
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I was just trying out an omegaron enlarger lens I've had for a while but hadn't had a chance to actually use. I prefer my linescan lens, but for a ~$20 lens (plus a $23 helicoid and adapters) it seems to perform pretty well.
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Jun 24, 2021 21:39
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 I bought a new (2nd hand) lens and oooh boy am I happy with it
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Jul 16, 2021 21:05
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Cool! Looks like you're getting good results. Which lens did you get? Spotted this leaf-footed bug(?) on my peppers today. 
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Jul 16, 2021 22:17
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Scarodactyl posted:Cool! Looks like you're getting good results. Which lens did you get? I got the 100-400 IS L (MK1 version), it's going to be perfect for my butterfly and dragonfly studies I think
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Jul 16, 2021 22:39
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AceClown posted:I got the 100-400 IS L (MK1 version), it's going to be perfect for my butterfly and dragonfly studies I think I use the 100-400 mk2 with the 1.4x extender for that purpose its amazing you can do birds and mediums sized bugs at the same time.  Ringlet Butterfly by Aves Lux, on Flickr  Orange Tip Butterfly Female by Aves Lux, on Flickr
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Jul 16, 2021 22:50
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man that extender looks like it really makes a difference, those are some gorgeous shots! 
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Jul 18, 2021 10:54
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You all have some amazing shots! It inspired me to try and get some macro type shots with my Fuji 70-300mm since I heard it might be capable of it. Still fairly new to photography in general but it was awesome watching that butterfly probe around trying to eat. So far the thing I'm finding the hardest is nailing the focus. More practice and hopefully I'll get there.  DSCF0836_1 DSCF0803
Drone Incognito fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jul 19, 2021 |
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Jul 19, 2021 16:04
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great shots those! What's the butterfly? Guessing it's a Fritillary but I'm struggling to ID it.
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Jul 19, 2021 23:05
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AceClown posted:great shots those! What's the butterfly? Guessing it's a Fritillary but I'm struggling to ID it. Thank you! I was trying to ID it and it's either that type or a Tawny Emperor. Location would be Northeast US.
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Jul 19, 2021 23:33
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I got some Meike extension tubes and they're pretty drat sweet to play with. It's not a real macro lens replacement, but paired with the new Tamron zooms, the results aren't bad: _DSC8026 by Kaleem Rorke, on Flickr
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Jul 21, 2021 16:25
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Y'all got suggestions for flash batteries? I feel like a chew through regular AA batteries pretty quick with my flash and the delay in charge up time is pretty annoying when you're dealing with bugs.
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Jul 21, 2021 20:52
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sildargod posted:I got some Meike extension tubes and they're pretty drat sweet to play with. It's not a real macro lens replacement, but paired with the new Tamron zooms, the results aren't bad... I just have a set of their tubes + my Sony kit lenses, and I've been pretty happy with them for my casual level of messing around. A lot of fun for thirty bucks.
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Jul 21, 2021 21:49
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Fingers McLongDong posted:Y'all got suggestions for flash batteries? I feel like a chew through regular AA batteries pretty quick with my flash and the delay in charge up time is pretty annoying when you're dealing with bugs. Eneloops all day long. I’ve used amazon basics, and they died after a lot fewer cycles than they were rated for. If you want to get weird, jarly has posted in this thread about using a AD200 strobe with a flash cable. I’ve converted over to that flash as well. It is powered by a big lithium ion battery, and the recycle times are awesome, lasts hundreds of pops at full power, and is bright AF. But it’s a single flash bulb, and you have a big thing on your belt, and a thick cable running to your camera.
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Jul 21, 2021 22:41
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Seconding Eneloops, they're very good. Though that strobe idea is interesting...
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Jul 22, 2021 00:25
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For my battery flashes (MT-26EX-RT) I use Duracell AA 2500mAh Recharge Ultra I read some comparison/review thing a while ago that said they were the best for recycle times. But that was a while ago so it might be different by now. Syritta Pipiens by Aves Lux, on Flickr jarlywarly fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jul 22, 2021 |
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Jul 22, 2021 08:19
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jarlywarly posted:For my battery flashes (MT-26EX-RT) I use Duracell AA 2500mAh Recharge Ultra I read some comparison/review thing a while ago that said they were the best for recycle times. But that was a while ago so it might be different by now. Great light on that fly! Did you abandon the AD200, or are you using the twin flash for higher magnification? I've considered a separate rig for the 1-5x than for the 100mm 2x. I finally took some pics of what I'm doing with the AD200. I like that it's basically a detachable softbox that I can hand-hold for creative lighting, or mount on the lens.  Macro field equipment, July 2021  Macro field equipment, July 2021 Some shots from this morning (love cool wet mornings when the bugs are calm after normally hot weather)  Ant The wolf spider doesn't read well as an image, but I like the natural history element and camouflage.  Wolf spider with babies
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Jul 22, 2021 18:56
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Nice shots, yeah I still have the AD200 but it doesn't work as well with the MP-e65mm at 2-3x macro which I have decided to focus on at the moment. Its way too hot for macro here at the moment though, hoping for some rain and sluggish insects on the weekend.  Honey Bee by Aves Lux, on Flickr
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Jul 23, 2021 10:10
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High insect season here, how's everyone else's season going? We'll miss it when it's winter! Bumblebee on Globe Thistle by Aves Lux, on Flickr  Peacock Butterfly by Aves Lux, on Flickr  Hoverfly Landing by Aves Lux, on Flickr jarlywarly fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Jul 3, 2022 |
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Jul 26, 2021 22:04
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jarlywarly posted:High insect season here, how's everyone else's season going? We'll miss it when it's winter! That hover fly is dynamite. Love it. I had a nice day today. I found a couple of jagged ambush bug nymphs on some of my wife's black-eyed susan cone flowers. I hadn't encountered them before. I get a strong godzilla vibe from them. Pretty small, too (~4mm) so it's always exciting to see how much more character they have when magnified.  Jagged Ambush Bug nymph on cone flower Jagged Ambush Bug nymph on cone flower  Jagged Ambush Bug nymph on cone flower
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Jul 28, 2021 04:33
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That's a lovely insect, really charismatic! The contrast with the dark blue of cone flower works really well!
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Jul 28, 2021 15:20
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That last shot looks like a kaiju on an alien landscape, sweet colors.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:04
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Those look like studio shots, very nice! Wish the third one had a bit more DoF.
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Jul 30, 2021 03:01
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I think some of you use Helicon Focus to do your stacking. I've used Zerene for years, and just tried a demo of Helicon again. I feel like I must be missing something, because the retouching workflow is missing a feature that's totally necessary for me. In every stack I shoot, I will do retouching where I create substacks from various parts of the image, and then retouch to pull in the substack. For example, I just shot a stack of this horsefly: Horsefly portrait The full depth stack has a bunch of hairs behind the mouthparts that distract from the look, so I created a substack of just the mouth. Then I choose the mouth substack, and retouch the main image, pulling in the clean mouth area. I did the same for the antennae. The antennae had stacking artifacts where the compound eyes bled through, so I made a stack of just the antennae and retouched to pull in that part of the images. In Zerene, this is trivially easy. You select a group of input images, choose "stack selected" and then retouch, selecting the output image as the retouching source. In Helicon, that seems ... not possible? You can choose an output image to use as an input, but it will only treat the output image as valid if it includes the first images in the overall set. In other words, you literally cannot retouch using a subset of the overall stack unless that subset includes the first images. Helicon said in 2015 on their forums that they were planning to implement substacks and slabbing (automatically stacking a rolling subset of input images), but as of today it seems to still be missing. It's a bummer because the Helicon stacking software is literally >300x faster to execute than Zerene, and the UI is certainly more accessible and responsive to zoom and pan big images. But processing a stack that takes 5 minutes in Zerene vs 1 second in Helicon is nothing compared to the time I spend in retouching each image, and the retouching workflow in Helicon seems to just totally fall down when you need to fix hairs or overlapping elements. Am I missing something here? How do Helicon users handle this, because it's a problem in 100% of stacks of hairy / complex subjects.
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Aug 2, 2021 17:22
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Yeah I never stack anything that complicated, Zerene is much better for the really complex slab stacking from what I read.
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Aug 2, 2021 18:03
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jarlywarly posted:Yeah I never stack anything that complicated, Zerene is much better for the really complex slab stacking from what I read. I suppose this is mostly just a problem for deep stacks where it’s too tedious to retouch using each individual source image so you have to sub stack to get a usable block of image data to use.it works fine to retouch using one source image at a time. But basically anything with legs, or where one in-focus area is in front of another in-focus area will have stacking artifacts that need to be retouched. I’m just baffled because helicon seems highly optimized for deep stacks. I could run 100 50 megapixel images through with GPU acceleration in just a second or two. But then it’s impractical to retouch it at all. Edit: they even support direct control of a stack shot rail (which I use) so they have deep stacks in mind!
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Aug 2, 2021 21:34
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My super jank double macro extension and Tamron 70-180mm setup netted me some surprisingly okay shots. The biggest issue is the working distance which is somewhere inside the actual lens hood, which when taken off introduces flare when I add light into the scene.  _DSC6339 by Kaleem Rorke, on Flickr _DSC6283 by Kaleem Rorke, on FlickrAstonishingly, at 70mm the magnification is a little over 1:1, at 180mm it's around 0.6x which is great because it still keeps a reasonable working distance. The extension tubes introduce really weird swirly artefacts to out of focus regions and the outer 1/3 of the image too which is annoying, but to be expected I suppose. That said, I found a Tamron 180mm for around $220 so I will be picking that up in the near future, though I am quite liking the whole make-your-own macro experience - not enough to risk my expensive lens overloading the cheapie extension tubes and being dropped to the floor though.
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Aug 5, 2021 16:48
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Found this in the garden while moving some boards around.  mama wolf spider-1 by Kevin Long, on Flickr
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Aug 13, 2021 20:43
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Aug 14, 2021 12:01
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Found some bee photos in the archives I'd never edited properly:  Fingers McLongDong posted:Found this in the garden while moving some boards around. Very cool find!
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Aug 17, 2021 01:01
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I feel extremely judged by this bee.  _DSC7024 by Kaleem Rorke, on Flickr _DSC7022 by Kaleem Rorke, on Flickr
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Aug 18, 2021 12:49
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These macro photos are really good! How do you all manage to get moving bugs in focus? Just lots of shots and patience? I don't have any real macro shots, but I wanted to share some recent insect pictures. The flowers are in bloom here and I was out looking for birds but found other things instead.  Some sort of moth.  A bee.  A White-lined Sphinx Moth.  I've been birding for a little while, but I'm starting to get more interested in insects too. Is there any good way of figuring out what a given bug is? For example, any advice for IDing the moth in the first photo?
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Sep 14, 2021 05:29
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DorianGravy posted:These macro photos are really good! How do you all manage to get moving bugs in focus? Just lots of shots and patience? Yeah my personal process involves me mumbling "god dammit stop moving" a lot while I'm hunched over some bushes or twisting a twig around to get the subject visible.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:45
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My process is essentially wait for it to get a bit colder/damper early in the morning or later on in the evening then sit by specific flowers/bushes in my garden on a low stool and wait. The more overcast/cooler and windier it is it gets better for bee photography, hoverflies are normally pretty chill. Wasps are a nightmare. People in much hotter climes often find bee's asleep in flowers etc, that doesn't really seem to happen as much here in the North West of England, I still try on sunnier days but it's much harder as everything is moving faster and sees your shadow as a threat.  Carder Bee by Aves Lux, on Flickr  Ichneumon Wasp by Aves Lux, on Flickr  Bumblebee portrait by Aves Lux, on Flickr
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Sep 15, 2021 08:44
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Speaking of sleeping bees, I have found a few in the garden recently. I also happened to check the last rose we had in a side flower bed and found a little jumper living in the curled up petals. Really love that first pic of the 3 you shared above, jarly Please excuse the lower quality and 1:1 ratios, I formatted them for sharing with the fickle instagram gods  sleeping bee-1 by Kevin Long, on Flickr bee and crab-1 by Kevin Long, on Flickr jumper in rose-1 by Kevin Long, on Flickr
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Sep 15, 2021 18:29
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Fingers McLongDong posted:Speaking of sleeping bees, I have found a few in the garden recently. I also happened to check the last rose we had in a side flower bed and found a little jumper living in the curled up petals. Thanks, your snoozing bee is lovely.
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Sep 15, 2021 20:34
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Thanks for the replies, everyone! It's neat to hear about the process of taking macro photos of wild things. And I never considered that bees might sleep in flowers! That sounds like a fantastically comfortable place to nap.
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Sep 16, 2021 04:35
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Heard a strange buzzing near my garbage bin, and discovered a jumping spider attached to the back end of this fly. The fly was still alive trying to get away but the spider was hanging on tight while being dragged along. Gruesome.
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Sep 18, 2021 04:32
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That's fantastic! You should take the trash out more often.
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Sep 19, 2021 00:14
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