More Owls

Evening shot of the Tawny Owl taken with the fish-eye lens - he did eventually eat his mouse. Below an image of the owl taken with fill-in flash to balance the exposure of sky and subject. I set the exposure for the sky on the camera manual setting and then experimented with various power flashes.

Emperor Moth

I tried various methods in an attempt to photograph a Female Emperor Moth. The moths are on the wing from April onwards - this female has hatched from a pupa that was kept indoors over the winter (thanks Bryan!). It is a day-flying moth although the females do not fly much at all being quite content to sit on a twig, smelling nice and waiting for the males to flock in.
In our area the caterpillars feed on hawthorn, blackthorn, meadow sweet etc .
I like the first picture best though I know black backgrounds are generally frowned on. I placed some black paper against the window directly behind the moth so there is light coming through the wings. I used 1/32 power ring flash to slightly boost the colours. The second attempt has natural light through the wings and has picked up the green colours of the background. The one on the log is again a combination of very low power flash and natural light. All taken with 50 mm macro lens.

Flash Evening in Cambridge

We spent an enjoyable couple of hours in Cambridge yesterday evening trying to get to grip with flash techniques, especially second curtain flash. We were very surprised that no one objected to a bank of 9 photographers firing flash guns at passing cars and bicycle on King's Parade. These are the best of my set. I especially like the strobe effect of the rear cycle lamp.

The Drummer

Taken with rear curtain flash to attempt movement of the drumstick - more or less worked.

1/60th sec f4.0. Manual focusing. Flash set ETTL and rear curtain.