A step forward on my macro photography

I recently bought a speedlight flashgun for my macro set up – to get the depth of field I want at the magnification I want with the low ISO I need to be able to use fill in flash.

I had part of a day at Llanelli WWT at the weekend with my lady to enjoy a walk and to try out the flash on camera, a start to get a feel for the settings I need to get the correct lighting and depth of field etc.

Willow leaves with rain

Horsefly female probably Tabanus autumnalis

Soldier fly Odontomyia viridula

A sawfly on a sowthistle- no idea which !

a BIG Hoverfly - Volucella zonaria

Common Spotted orchid

Emperor Dragonfly

 Following on from that I ordered a sync cable. This will allow me to use the flash ‘off camera’. This is so I could move it to the side of the lens and towards the front so I had more control and could model the light better.

Out in the garden, 

Harvestman

Bee mimic fly

Ruby tail cuckoo wasp circa 10mm

Lots of work to do on getting the base settings correct but it is not a bad start.

The range of insects is interesting and it will require some time to experiment to get the best lighting effect without creating ugly highlights on insects, and ugly shadows on surrounding plants. 

The trip that nearly wasnt

A day out was planned, headaches all round made it slightly delayed as to getting out but Cerney House is always worth a trip for any time of day.

The tulips have gone over and the Roses are yet to fill the gap fully, transition time is like edges, always interesting and always more challenging. So much at the end and so much at the new beginning gives new angles and thoughts to create images that hopefully please and maybe delight the eye.

The weather seemed to go against the prediction as we drove closer with clouds and greyness predominating the sky, but once at Cerney the wind blew them away to our delight and the sun favoured the brave.

A few images to show for the time but to be honest, the time was enjoyed and will be remembered with these images serving simply as triggers to bring back the smell, touch, sights and conversations.

The little house at the end of the path - renovated after a tree fell on it

 The have Roman Snails there - say hello to Boris 

One of the statues in the wilder part of the gardens, difficult to get a good angle on

 Aquilegia

 Thick thighed Beetle on cranesbill

 Another Cranesbill - I did not bother with the names, they have a wide variety of Cranesbills colours from dark purples to white and all the shades between

Another Cranesbill - thats the last for this trip

 Astrantia, also in a few colours - I liked the pale ones 

 Okay I fibbed,  another member of the cranesbill family but this one is Herb Robert a wild native plant

This lady was patient enought for me to take her picture up close - Hornets are very docile really and not agressive.

Another common 'weed', White dead nettle - and its not a nettle !

The common all garden Orange Tip Butterfly, just for once it co-operated and stayed still for a shot

And now the Roses, well one anyway.

 There is one with thorns worth calling thorns but it was not in flower, but wow, those thorns !

There were a few in flower but who can resist the archetypal Red Rose

I liked this, it was hidden away deep into a bush, as the sun came around it slowly came into sight

And finally, Iris's were in flower but enough of them from Rosemoor, except this one. I loved the strong leaf diagonals and then the firm upright of the bud.

I was with my lady and eldest daughter and while I was wandering around snapping images they sat, chatted, drew and wrote. In all a relaxing day as it should be.

A good weekend

The weekend gone is a long distant memory, such is the pressure of modern day work. It was a three day weekend to take my lady to a Botanical Art Course in RHS Rosemoor, and I got to have a three day photo break. What’s not to like.

I wont try to break this down into each day from a photographic point, some images may be against the wrong day, but hey so what. 

On the first day I spend the day at Rosemoor, arrived as they opened and left as they closed the weather started wet and improved as the day went on so a number of nice shots of leaves and flowers with raindrops

They use chains as downpipes from the gutters, I like the effect

 Bamboo in the rain

 A North American Pine. I love the 'black' cones

The small stream that leads down to the lake

On the second day, well this is Tarka country on the Tarka trail, so who am I not to take the opportunity to walk a stretch of the river immortalised in the book, one I dearly loved as a young person. In fact the very stretch of the river in the book where Tarka’s journey began and sadly ended at Torrington.

The day started off overcast and quiet but soon warmed up and out came the people with dogs, sadly no otters for me but there were damsels, or in this case Demoiselles, both Banded and Beautiful. In the main it was young males and only one or two mature ones and a lot of females, telling the females apart was not so easy as the males! I walked about 3 miles along the river then the same back to Rosemoor and then had a couple of hrs at Rosemoor again in the afternoon sun

Beetle - Oedemera nobilis on meadow buttercup

 Female Demoiselle - hard to tell which at this stage until the wings deepen in colour. Green wings are a Banded D and brown wings are a Beautiful D, I suspect this will be a Beautiful D

 A mayfly, shortlived and in large number at this time to the great benefit of the trout !

 Male Demoiselles from both the UK specie in one place

  A Geometer moth caterpillar - inchworm pretending to be a stick, but as its on a Ladys Mantle it did not blend in well !

 One of my favourite 'bugs' a Jumping Spider Evarcha falcata. They are soo cute and only 3-5mm but boy do they have big eyes, all the better to see you with! These guys are serious hunters.

 

A Leafhopper - Cercopis vulnerata, if you see 'cuckoo spit' this is one of the culprits, its a 'nest' for the young

A Hoverfly - possibly Eristsalis nemorum

The third day it was back to Rosemoor and again it started damp but improved as the day went on.

Given the garden is a RHS garden it does, as you would expect, fill your senses in colour, form and scent. The Roses are yet to reach their full glory but the Irises rose to the occasion and filled the borders with elegant stands and stunning shows of blues and violets set off by intense yellows and oranges going into browns and pale rose colours, one in particular caught my eye, Deep Black. It was, in the flower world a lot of deep purple flowers are deemed to be black, but this particular flower is truly black! Even then in close detail that a macro lens allows you to see you can see the underlying purples and blues that make it that black colour as seen by your eye.

 I love the colours here, aint nature fab when she gets her paints out !

 A fab flower, so simple and elegant. There was a field full of them.

 Big and bold, the silver edge just makes the main colours stand up and shout at you

 The details of the patterns are fab, the colours blending in to each other, so hard to capture the subtly of them

 So elegant next to the lake, a slight breeze sets them to a graceful dance that captivates you

 Now thats Black - none of that wishy washy dark purple! You can however see the colours that make up the 'black' its all about layers and refraction

There were bugs and birds. It was a nice weekend with the opportunity to be there when the garden opened and given the weather, only a few people about. 

I also had a play, one technique not used before by me, I am a macro shooter so 'sharp' is everything normally but this time I was looking for blur, deliberate blur. The first makes me think of the Australian outback with a huge heat haze, the second is more a watercolour impressionist type of thing

 Swallows, they 'hawk' along low level catching flies on the wing, they are doing about 25 miles an hr past you at 6 inches above the ground and turn on a sixpence ( old money) or a 5p piece, ( does not sound so flash ) I had my macro lens on and so was panning with a fixed focus 150mm lens - 99% of shots hit the bin, this one was the only survivor and its not good !

 Now - those of us with families will know this feeling - thats what having children does to you. So any children reading this, take heed your parents were once smart, good looking well groomed people, now they look like this and its your fault!

My lady learnt lots of Botanical Art skills and gained insights to how to progress her passion for this going forward, I took lots of images and am slowly processing them. These are just a few from 20+gb of images. 

A fine weekend for us both with quality time doing things we love and spending time together away with a real feel of a relaxing and stress free time to enjoy ourselves. Overall I walked most of the day every day either along the river or around Rosemoor, a garden I now know very well and have a great liking for. We will return as we both barely scraped the surface of this lovely place for plants to sketch and paint and for wildlife to photograph.