Mother Nature Kicks Ass

I can't stress enough how unprepared I am for this whole photography thing, and how it's on so many levels. Tonight, I had the gear, I'd carefully planned my location, and wham, mother nature hits me with an AWESOME and frankly, unexpected opportunity.

Finally, the sunset I've been waiting for!

Some of you may remember how last weekend mother nature decided I didn't deserve to have a nice sunset; perhaps it was because I'd burned all my photography karma on the boa constrictor. Who knows.

But she made it up to me in spades tonight.

I went out with two bars left on my camera's battery indicator and empty flash memory cards. I came home with an almost dead battery and 5GB of RAW images. All photos were taken with the 18-200 lens.

Without further ado, the images:



Consider this a special guest photo; it's the east facing at the location where I took the sunset photos. If I can manage to haul my ass out of bed for a sunrise shoot, this will be where it happens. Ok, enough commercials, on with it...



I was very pessimistic at the start of the evening. It was about 7:45 p.m. when I arrived on location and I knew sunset would be at 8:50 p.m. I was early, no doubt, but the clouds were heavy, and the sun was barely poking through. Not good, I thought. Good thing I'm clueless.



After a bit, things improved slightly. The first signs of color in an otherwise colorless sky. Oh sigh, said I, ho-hum.



Then, far off in the rumbling distance, I heard the sound of a mighty switch flipping, and the bad ass special effects kicked in. The whole sky wasn't yet lit, but with a little creative zooming, things were starting to come together.



I was even treated to some light rays. And it just kept getting better.



More and more of the sky got in on the action.



And it got better...



... and better ...



... and better ...



... and better. At this point it was getting close to 9 p.m., and I had to start increasing the ISO to continue to take reasonable hand-held shots. I'd not brought my tripod because I was shooting right at an intersection, and I didn't want people to think it was a radar trap and start driving spazzy.



With battery level indicator flashing red, ISO at 400 and the bugs (!) starting to come out, this was amongst the last shots I took. But wait, there's more!



This photo happened about half way through the session and made me laugh out loud. What luck. It could be composed better, but I love it none the less.

I have super special photo plans for Sunday, and I can't wait to get back out!

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

Limited Polarizer Showcase

I've been whining and clawing at the door for a while now, waiting not-so-patiently for my polarizer and protective UV filters I ordered to arrive. I picked them up yesterday and today was the first time I had a chance to try them out, specifically the polarizer.

What is a polarizer? I'm sure there's an incredibly detailed explanation a quick Google search away, but in layman's terms it's a filter that screws on the end of your lens that cancels some of the light going to the sensor.

The result can be spectacular in ideal circumstances, and the effect is something Photoshop can't yet copy. Similar to polarized sunglasses, a polarizer can make skies seem a richer blue, clouds seem more white, and cuts the reflections from most surfaces, like shiny plant leaves, creating a more vivid photo.

The polarizer used on digital cameras are of the Circular type (opposed to Linear) so they work with autofocus, and most can rotate on the end of your lens, allowing you to 'dial up' or down the polarizing effect.

The tricky part about using a polarizer is that the effect only manifests when the sun is 90 degrees to your left or right when shooting. It fades rather abruptly if you change facing.



Here we have a photo with the polarizer on the lens but the effect dialed to minimum. Notice there's some vignetting in the top left and right of the image. This is caused by me having to use a step-up ring on my 72mm diameter lens. The step up ring is like an adapter. The polarizer I bought is a 77mm diameter filter; most lenses I will own will be 77mm diameter so I went cheap and got one I can use on multiple lenses when I get them. Also, notice how the leaves look dull.



And here is a photo with the polarizer set to maximum effect. Fantastic! Sure, the trees are blurry, but who'd look at the trees with a sky like that? And the leaves! No longer dull.

Love the polarizer. Can't wait to try it somewhere other than my front yard. The other filters I have are UV/Haze filters, to be used as protection against lens scratches.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

Peterborough Zoo, Trent Canal Lock and Farm

My photo blog - now with a reorganized layout! Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Peterborough and took a bunch of photos at three locations: the Riverview Park and Zoo, the Sawyer Creek lock on the Trent Canal and the farm where I grew up.

The day started great but ended in a bit of a wash, with the sunset being extremely underwhelming and the mosquitoes so bad I couldn't stay out for my first crack at astro-photography. On the bright side, no pun intended, I had a chance to look at the light pollution levels and assess whether it would be possible to do long exposures there. I think it should be fine. All I need is a chance to shoot after midnight, and, with luck, a lot of wind but no clouds. I might have to wait until September to go again, after the mosquitoes are dead.

No macro on this trip. The photos that follow are taken with the 18-200mm. I shot 10GB of RAW photos, a lot of which are duplicates with different exposures as I experimented with different lighting and what I could get away with. Here are the day's highlights:



In the beginning... I took this photo of the Otonabee River as an experiment in long exposures. I've been interested in doing long exposure day shots of water, because it can create very cool blurring effects. The challenge is to pull off a long exposure in bright light without overexposing the image. This photo represents the slowest shutter speed I could muster: 1/30th of a second at f/22.



I moved on and found this heron. I think they are one of the coolest birds in Ontario. The power generating station is in the background.



I'd just left the heron and was walking over a bridge to an island when I heard a small child approaching with some adults. Realizing he was making a lot of noise and was approaching the heron, I readied my camera in time to get this shot of it on the wing.



This is a Whooping Swan. I know this because the sign said so. Until I read the sign I thought it was just a cool bird doing yoga.



This is my brother, obviously. Shot through a window.



A wallaby, kind enough to form a smooth crescent with its body to give this photo a nice sense of composition. Shot through a chain-link fence.



I think this photo of a boa constrictor is staged, unknown to me at the time, by me. The snake is in a dark enclosure with a glass window that lets in natural light. When I took my first picture his mouth was closed. As I took more photos (tough to get in focus, because I was hand-holding at .4 sec, f/5.6, 170mm) its mouth kept opening wider. The test light on my camera was firing for each shot and I think it was making the snake react. Anyway, this is the business end of a boa constrictor, and I wouldn't want to see it in any other circumstance. Shot through glass.



If life were simpler, and if I could guarantee these little buggers wouldn't chew me to pieces, I'd spend my days in the cage with the Meer Cats.



This photo of a deer represents another exposure test. The darkness of the cave and the direct morning sun bouncing off the rocks made for an image filled with a lot of high light pixels and a lot of low light pixels. It took me a bit to get it all under control.



After my time at the zoo I drove through Trent University along the Trent Canal, heading to a spot I used to go to as an angst ridden teen. The spot is the Sawyer Creek lock on the canal system, one of many along the drive. In the spring the water runs high and this dam is very active with a lot of white water. It was here I wanted to try my long exposure water blurring shots, but when I arrived a first glance said it wouldn't happen because there was too much direct sun, and it was verrrry bright.



Fortunately I did some poking around and found this spot. An unused spillway that used stacked logs to hold back the river. Luck was with me because it was shaded, and had very charismatic leaks. Mission accomplished.



After the dam it was on to the farm. Although the weather reports said there would be storms all day, the sky in this photo shows as close as it got to rain all day.



I had two goals at the farm. The first was to shoot the sunset, the second, try some low-key astro photography because I thought the sky would be only lightly polluted by Peterborough. This photo represents both the World's Most Underwhelming Sunset Ever, and my frustration with it. The mosquitoes got so bad I had to go inside before I could shoot stars. I'm postponing astro photography until the Fall.



My first ever attempt at shooting the moon. It wasn't full, and I forgot some of the tips I'd read about shooting it, but here it is. The most dangerous part was that it lead me to think 200mm is not nearly enough...

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

You Broke Into the Wrong God-Damn Apartment!

My subject waves to the camera near the end of the session. Flash, 105mm



Fancy noisemakers on its rear legs. No flash, 105mm



My first ever 1:1 crop, showing detail on its back, just behind its head. Note it's not a smooth surface, but almost furry. No flash, 105mm



Top down shot showing the above 1:1 crop in context. No flash, 105mm



My victim in profile, shortly before the live release. Flash, 105mm

This guy picked the worst time to make an appearance on my bedroom floor. I'd just been thinking about how I had no photography plan for the evening, looked down, and the rest is macro history. Well, maybe not significant history, but history nonetheless.

I've been thinking about how to shoot bugs and get away with really good 1:1 shots. The hardest thing in the outdoors is to get them to stay still without killing them. Bugs naturally move around a lot when they're exposed, with a few exceptions, such as when they're mating. So when I caught this guy, I thought I had it made.

It was a challenge to get a shot set up where I could contain the cricket without obstructing the shot. The first few shots I took were of it in the bottom of a coffee mug, with the camera on a tripod pointing down over it. I got my best detail shots that way of its back, because it essentially 'fit' in the focal plane.

I switched to a drinking glass with saran wrap over it, placed on its side so the top was facing the camera. This was better than the mug because more ambient light hit the cricket. However, the cricket didn't like the smooth curved surface and moved around a lot more. I'm sure a better glass wear solution is out there for such a set up, but not in my kitchen.

Near the end of shoot I mounted the flash kit, with one remote unit on the end of the lens. I had to mess with it a bit and angle it in such a way to avoid the flash bouncing off the saran wrap. The plastic probably distorted the focus a bit, but there would have been no keeping the cricket pinned down without it (short of pinning it down, and I didn't want to do that).

I think the primary lesson learned was that a good macro shot of a bug is 80% luck, and the rest prep and fast reaction times. I shot the entire session with the camera on manual, as I found the camera had a hard time coping with the light, glass, saran wrap, moving bug, etc. The remote release was also very important in reducing camera shake. Doing this outdoors is going to be painful, but I can't wait.

The title of this post is an adjusted quote from the movie Tremors.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.

A Little Macro Warm-Up

Practically a 1:1 shot, almost impossible to focus by hand. Like a lot of these photos, kept it for the colors. 105mm



Yay! Bug! 105mm



This flower was on the shade side of the building, made focusing hand held very difficult. 105mm



This one was on the windy side of the building, and I would not have included it (because I really didn't hit the focal point I wanted - again), except it was the best of 10 and the color is fantastic. 105mm



I enjoy this one because it looks like a field of flowers, in the middle of a flower. 105mm

Tonight I came home and had a swim, and in the wake of the resulting exercise high I decided to annoy my neighbors and shoot the flowers around my building. I hope to do my first real field outing this weekend, weather and filters arrival permitting, and I wanted to make sure I understood what problems I'd face before then. Hopefully, to figure out a way to avoid them.

I think my biggest challenge for field macro will be working with the tripod. Essentially every shot needs one. I could cheese out and crop my photos, meaning I could stay further away from the subject and hope for the best - but I didn't get a 12MP camera so I could have a 300px wide subject. The challenge is on! I just hope it isn't windy.

I really want to get one 1:1 shot in focus!

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.