Project 52 Challenge by Geoff F - Third Quarter

[Geoff F]

Continuing with this challenge to post at least one image each week. No particular theme this year just a random selection of scenes from my local area. This is the third quarter and the second quarter is here

Project 52 Challenge by Geoff F - Second Quarter

Week 22 - The sky from where I was recording insects today.



7D with Canon 24-105 lens. 1/400 F11 Iso 400 merge of two bracketed exposures.

[Geoff F]

And a few of the insects which I have found recently; starting with some robberflies which I always find difficult to photograph

Small Yellow-legged Robberfly - Dioctria linearis



Stripe-legged Robberfly - Dioctria baumhaueri



Common Red-legged Robberfly - Dioctria rufipes



And a plant which has these small odd looking flowers. Common Twayblade

[Cantab]

An uncharacteristically almost flat horizon! It almost reminded me of the Canadian prairies (or East Anglia).
In any event, I enjoyed it. Did you do anything to highlight the wispy clouds or are they unedited?

[Geoff F]

Merge of two bracketed exposures, Bruce, so the sky came from the slightly under exposed shot but otherwise unedited except for the normal Raw conversion tweaks.

That field slowly rises then, over the hill, it drops steeply away. In fact the land drops away in every direction from that point.

I was photographing and recording insects today when I found this emerging bug under a stinging nettle leaf.



After a couple of minutes it was free and hanging underneath the leaf. Not sure which species though.

[Cantab]

What a pair of shots!

I was going to ask what is it but see I'm not the only one who doesn't know. If you find out what it is, let us know!

[Astro]

Wonderfull captures Geoff... and you are right about Robber flies, there is something tricksy about getting a 'satisfactory' shot.
I was trying a week or to back and every time I changed position the creature moved around to 'counter' my move. Since I usually have a Twin Lite attached to my macro lens I have often wondered if some insects 'perceive' the rig as the eyes of a potential predator.

[Geoff F]

That is why I don't use a ring light flash, James. It looks just like a pair of eyes and a lens mouth. Also it is too risky to have that sort of equipment where it is likely to suffer some knocks.

At one time, I tried using a Lastolite Mini Apollo over my external flash head to give something to hide behind and it does broaden the flash illumination when getting really close. But I found it also tended to get caught up in the foliage. Possibly some advantage in hiding your face when the sun is behind you but at other angles the sun would reflect off the white surface and scare everything away.

With that emerging bug I did think about a Corizus hyoscyami or one of the Rhopalus bugs based on the colour but I assume there is still one more moult to go so everything might change again.

[Geoff F]

Week 23 - Another sky based image of where I was recording insects today. The day started off bright but soon turned cloudy with approaching rain so I had a go to see if I could get anything in the way of a cloudy day scene.



7D with Canon 24-105 lens Merge of two bracketed exposures plus a few other tweaks. 1/320 F11 Iso 400

Originally shot for a 3 x 2 ratio image but I eventually decided there was too much bland foreground and uninteresting sky at the top so I then went for a widescreen alternative.

[Geoff F]

And a few very tricky to photograph insects which stretched my abilities so this was the best I could get from them.

Rose Chafer



Ruby-tailed Wasp



Terellia serratulae. One of the 'picture-winged flies' but with plain wings. They are only found on those very spiny Spear Thistles.



Definitely not prize winning photographs but they are good enough to confirm my identifications; which was the main intention.

[Cantab]

I particularly like the ruby tailed wasp image. You've handled well the wide dynamic range of the scene.

I read Wikipedia's blurb about this interesting wasp which I'd not heard of previously. It parasitizes other wasps (and mason bees) and supposedly doesn't sting!

[Wavelength]

Very interesting images

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the comments. Here are some more sky based images of where I was recording insects yesterday.

Week 24. Approaching shower clouds. Although they didn't actually produce any rain and moved away from the coast, towards Dartmoor



7D with Canon 24-105 lens. 1/320 F11 Iso 200. Merge of two bracketed shots.



1/400 F11 Iso 400

[Geoff F]

And some recent insect photographs. Starting with two more robberfly species.

Common Awl Robberfly



Striped Slender Robberfly



A different angle on a Silver-washed Fritillary butterfly.



These Ringlets were too busy to notice me.

[Cantab]

Geoff, in today's insect shots were you relying on sunlight or perhaps using the on camera flash? In any event, they're good sharp images.

[Geoff F]

A little bit of fill flash is my default setting, Bruce.

Manually set the camera to an average which slightly underexposes then add in a touch of flash with a bit of flash exposure compensation as required for individual scenes.

I have been trying extra hard on my manual focusing recently. I was finding that too many images were coming out a bit on the soft side. Maybe my viewfinder requires a tweak for ageing eyes or more probably I was rushing my shots in case some particularly interesting subjects ran away before I could focus. A lot of problems like that today with most of the more interesting species being on the flighty side.

[Geoff F]

Week 25 - Looking over the wall behind the National Trust Garden at Overbecks. I was recording and photographing insects in the wood behind this garden.



7D with Canon 24-105 lens Merge of two bracketed exposures 1/250 F11 Iso 400.

[Geoff F]

And here is a little wildflower from the wood. Enchanter's Nightshade. Generally regarded as a garden weed but those little 5 mm flowers prove attractive to a wide range of insects.



A close up of the flowers.



Also a hoverfly from that site. Epistrophe grossulariae

[joebranko]

With regards your comment on how you set your exposure, I am glad you made that comment. For a long time now I have been setting my exposure to be slightlyoverexposed, because of a comment I read a long time ago. I can't remember the source nor the rationale, for it. So I need to review this procedure. Thanks for sharing your procedure.

[xpatUSA]

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I have been trying extra hard on my manual focusing recently. I was finding that too many images were coming out a bit on the soft side. Maybe my viewfinder requires a tweak for ageing eyes ...

Assuming an optical viewfinder (OVF), focusing can get more difficult with deteriorating vision, I find. Pardon the truism.

I've been using a 1.32X viewfinder add-on for a good while now. Also, taking great care with the diopter adjustment helps. I only found out recently that you adjust it so that the ground glass engravings look sharp as opposed to trying to deduce a good setting from shrubbery and rolling hills.

I have also fixed the problem mo' better by buying a camera with a 3.6M dot EVF with magnification and focus peaking. Beats my OVF anytime, anywhere.

Always in manual ...

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the reply, Ted. I have tried altering my diopter adjustment but several clicks seem to make no difference then one more is too much. Maybe I need to take more time over the adjustment.

Week 26 - Harvesting A couple of days ago they started harvesting the barley in a small field across the valley from my house. Too far away really but I decided to have a go anyway with my bird lens.



7D with Sigma 150-600 Sport lens. 1/400 F8 Iso 200 at 548 mm