New Lighting System for Fuji Macro

My ringflash has ceased to operate so I have been trying alternatives for throwing a bit of light into my Fuji macro shots. Here a selection with a small TTL hot shoe flash that seems to give the right amount of light to work at the F22 aperture that these small beasties need. Bumblebees are almost impossible to photograph well being round and covered in very reflective hairs but this is certainly about as good as I have previously achieved. On white flowers, the flash does an excellent job in filling in shadows. Being TTL even did good job lighting a more distant lizard.

Depth of Field in Depth of the Woods

It is always difficult to decide how much to have in focus in an image - obviously it depends on the reason for taking the shot. The first four were taken with the idea of a pictorial idea of a life in the woods (f 7.1 for the Shield Bug; f16 for the next two and f20 for the Morrell fungus). The last two images are focus stacked at 2.8 to give a simple background but maximum detail of the subject. By chance I have a wonderful uniformity of colour palette, which is probably the thing that most influences my reaction to an image.

Waresley Wood on a Misty Morning

Spring is certainly in full swing in Waresley and Gamlingay Woods now though the bluebells need another week or so to be fully out. The misty conditions in the morning were ideal for flower photography with water droplets adding interest to the images.

Burnham-on-Sea

A bit belatedly, some images from Burnham-on-Sea taken on the last day of our trip to Somerset. It was very busy with dog walkers when we arrived but soon cleared as lunchtime approached. Last images - 30secs - also a good way to clear people from the scene!!

Spring Greens in cambridge

Morning rain gave way to clear sunshine after lunch for our return walk along the Cam to the car. Great to see different ages all out enjoying Cambridge at its greenest.

Black-Headed Gulls Paxton Pits

We went to Paxton Pits yesterday hoping for a variety of flying birds to practise flight shots but the BH Gulls were very much the dominant species dipping to catch small invertebrates on the surface of the water. I didn't use quite fast enough shutterspeed for these fast flyers (1/1600th here ).