As I'm still working on editing more recent photos for which I need to learn certain techniques, I decided to share a TB (= throwback) photo session I had in a park, a bit over 2 years ago.
The conditions were very tough : the sky was overcast, and it was quite windy. Being too cold doesn't help me take the best photos, so I hope to go back on one of the last warm days of this summer that is drawing shorter, but for now, here are those pics from mid-June 2015.
I edited levels, contrast, and reduced size to fit this blog's limitations by cropping - which seems to also reduce the overall resolution.
I started with this moth, which you can see in 3 different angles. I especially love the creepy, almost alien looking legs as it holds onto the grass blade, but also those furry antennas. Moths fascinate me, and you'll see many more photos with them, as our region has many types.
I love how grasshoppers grasp their balance on twigs and stand at attention, waiting to jump far away from you. But, if you are slow in your movements, or better yet, quite still, they'll strike really funny poses.
When the sun came out, I had a lot of difficulties focusing on my subjects and finding the right exposure/bias/duration combination to get the best results. My current editing skills didn't allow this bee next to a while plant receiving full and direct sunlight from appearing almost over-exposed, and this is an area of technique I need to learn.
I then found this other moth, sunbathing (probably desperately waiting to get warm, just like I was) , and also diving into a flower, seeking food, no doubt.
I rarely saw anyone in this park during my entire stay. Out of those few people, I was amused when these two stilt-walkers showed up, a photo for which I had to quickly tuck away my macro-attachement, swap settings, and shoot as they were speeding away from me.
Then, bees showed up again, and proved very challenging in lacking cooperation, flying about far too fast for me, and the difficulty was increased as the wind picked up speed as well.
Here, my efforts weren't very successful, so I'll share basically to showcase the best that I managed under these conditions, but once I post better bee photos, you'll be able to compare with my results under optimal, non-windy conditions.
One of these photos didn't appear so nice in color, so I de-saturated to create this black & white result.
The same difficulties arose as I noticed these bugs doing their procreation deed, on a high enough branch that warranted my climbing on a bench to steady myself best I could, and despite image stabilization coupled with the tripod, their movements and attempts to hide away proved the biggest challenge yet.
On my way out, I noticed this fly on a tall and weird grass blade, and liked the overall composition. Being too far, and hand-held, the photo doens't show as much detail as I wished, but the light on the top left corner of the blade, the greenness of the blade itself (which I barely had to tweak !) and the position of this fly all came together to create something a bit artistic.
My settings for the bugs were about 100-200 ISO, depending on brightness, usually at F5 but sometimes ranging F4 to 5.6, closing the iris more or less, and a duration that ranged from 1/1250th of a second (for that second moth series), to 1/60th of a second when I was in cloudier zones, where I needed a bit more exposure.
Those I could, I had taken with my macro-attachement, but as I am limited to 22CM maximum distance from my subject, under penalty of unfocused images, I had to take it off and only use macro modes in several shots, such as most of the bees who didn't cooperate at all, thus never truly posing for me, and flying away as soon as I'd move even an iota.
Macro-photography of moving beings afraid for their lives isn't an easy task. Some will remain posing for long minutes, others barely let you be for a second, and go away...
Exposure combos aren't easy to explain, and sometimes you just have to adapt to the conditions around you. If your F-stop is a high number, you close the iris a lot, thus letting far less light. This can be very useful in many situations such as bright sunny days, or for focusing on narrower scenes, but you'll have to adjust exposure time, and ISO (light sensitivity) as well as white balance, unless you leave it on automatic, and deal with it later on post production, like I used to do.
Otherwise, I find it better to adjust at least to "cloudy" or "sunny" conditions, if you cannot use a grey-scale card on every photo and then try to remember what you used...
If your camera lets you use raw files, your converted can give you the information on which settings you used, whilst JPEG information is less detailed (at least in my case).
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