Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Martin Kristiansen on June 20, 2019, 09:44:35 am
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I am rubbish at macro. Always have been but I keep trying. Partly because I have a macro lens for work and if you have a garden and a macro lens there is always something to shoot. Today I managed to get a bee in flight. I have ben trying for ages but the little buggers are super quick and to me unpredictable. I can see when a bird is about to take off but bees continue to confuse me.
Today I got a bee.
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I am rubbish at macro. Always have been but I keep trying. Partly because I have a macro lens for work and if you have a garden and a macro lens there is always something to shoot. Today I managed to get a bee in flight. I have ben trying for ages but the little buggers are super quick and to me unpredictable. I can see when a bird is about to take off but bees continue to confuse me.
Today I got a bee.
That you did, Martin; I hope it kept right on flying! Don't killer bees come from your land? To me, they all look the same: little flying zebras with painful stings that they give you apropos of nothing at all. Mothers!
Rob
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Bees do kill people sometimes but it’s fairly rare. A couple a year I suppose. They aren’t usually aggressive but they lose it now and again. Don’t think we have killer bees in the way you seem to mean.
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Bees do kill people sometimes but it’s fairly rare. A couple a year I suppose. They aren’t usually aggressive but they lose it now and again. Don’t think we have killer bees in the way you seem to mean.
Killer bees are smaller and carry less venom, which in addition is less potent.
They are called "killer" because of how they defend their hive.
Go imagine.
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As for Martin's flying bee, that is much better than any I've ever been able to capture.
I've gotten a couple of shots with a bee just sitting there, waiting for me to focus and press the shutter.
So I'm impressed.
-Eric
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Thanks Eric.
Someone local saw it on Insta and asked if they can use it at the food market where they sell raw honey. I said sure if you give me a pot of honey and that was my only sale today. I like honey.
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Thanks Eric.
Someone local saw it on Insta and asked if they can use it at the food market where they sell raw honey. I said sure if you give me a pot of honey and that was my only sale today. I like honey.
Congrats! A sale is a sale, and that was a sweet one. ;)
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Congrats! A sale is a sale, and that was a sweet one. ;)
I can't believe that Martin would ask for a pot of honey. So Pooh Bear like, Rumbly Tumbly.
JR
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Hehehe. Funny.
Since I was a kid I have sold and traded photos for stuff. Sold my first photos to a local knock and drop at 14. Spent all the money on filters. Now I don’t need filters but I could use a pot of honey.
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Now I don’t need filters but I could use a pot of honey.
If you were John R you might want to spread some of that honey on a lens to see what it does to your images. ;)
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If you were John R you might want to spread some of that honey on a lens to see what it does to your images. ;)
Hey Martin, tell Eric to Bee-have...or better yet, try the honey on an old filter.
JR
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Hey Martin, tell Eric to Bee-have...or better yet, try the honey on an old filter.
JR
:D
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Our economy is really in a bad place. Trading for food might be the way to go. Now I need to go photograph a cow.
Actually I will most likely end the day crawling around the garden trying at macro photography again. I seem to have encouraged myself with a minor success. I was afraid that might happen. Not only am I rubbish at macro but I don’t even enjoy the process.
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Our economy is really in a bad place. Trading for food might be the way to go. Now I need to go photograph a cow.
Actually I will most likely end the day crawling around the garden trying at macro photography again. I seem to have encouraged myself with a minor success. I was afraid that might happen. Not only am I rubbish at macro but I don’t even enjoy the process.
When I planted my new plant in its old pot, yesterday - sounds a contradiction in terms, but it was a new plant and the pot was an old one - I had to drag it (the pot) over a row of little rocks that I placed there decades ago to form a defensive border against the grass. (I can't lift anything relatively heavy anymore due to health issues, so women and thresholds need have no fear.)
Anyway, as I was doing that, I thought I'd disturbed a baby lizard as somethng scurried at great speed away from the rocks and up the wall. But nope, it was one of those large wolf spiders we get in the countryside. I hate those things. Once, I used to kill them on sight because they have a nasty habit of dozing on the shutters, and when you open those, the critters just move to the opposite side to you, and you then have no idea where they are anymore since one shutter blade looks much as its neighbour, above or below. My solution, in recent years, is not to harm them if I can avoid it, but to go for one of those stiff grass brooms that look flat from the side, and are quite rigid. After a few blocking manouevres, the spiders seem to think it's a game, and eventually climb up onto the broom, at which stage I quickly transport them to the end of the terrace and with a sharp flick, send them sailing away onto a hedge. It's a critical move: time or power it incorrectly, and the entire creature coud just sail straight up into the air and out of sight, only to come crashing down onto one's head. As there's little hair - on the head - it could be quite a stunning experience for both spider and myself. Actually, more hair would make it even worse for me.
Have a nice day.
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Rob, from this and other posts I get the impression that you have a Northern European attitude to bugs.
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I think the issue with macro is that to do it right is super tedious. Requires rings, a tripod head with the turning device that moves the head forward and back, strong lighting, subjects that aren't moving, and about 60 shots focus stacked in photoshop... Brutal. That means you have to catch the bee, kill it, cut the flower, bring it into your studio, and then spend hours focus stacking and post processing?! End results are awesome... but you really have to love it.
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I think the issue with macro is that to do it right is super tedious. Requires rings, a tripod head with the turning device that moves the head forward and back, strong lighting, subjects that aren't moving, and about 60 shots focus stacked in photoshop... Brutal. That means you have to catch the bee, kill it, cut the flower, bring it into your studio, and then spend hours focus stacking and post processing?! End results are awesome... but you really have to love it.
Sounds like loads of fun. I would rather have a colonoscopy to be honest.
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I think the issue with macro is that to do it right is super tedious. Requires rings, a tripod head with the turning device that moves the head forward and back, strong lighting, subjects that aren't moving, and about 60 shots focus stacked in photoshop... Brutal. That means you have to catch the bee, kill it, cut the flower, bring it into your studio, and then spend hours focus stacking and post processing?! End results are awesome... but you really have to love it.
Don't forget to include all the time and expense of doing taxidermy on the bee.
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I am rubbish at macro.Today I got a bee.
You are nothing of the kind. You've submitted proof to the contrary. Well done!
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You are nothing of the kind. You've submitted proof to the contrary. Well done!
Thanks but in the interest of honesty let me explain how I actually got this shot.
Sony A9 with 90mm Sony macro lens. A plant that the bees have gone nuts over. 20 FPS with a 5 gig buffer. Figuring out the right focus area was critical. Then it was all about stubbornness.
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Thanks but in the interest of honesty let me explain how I actually got this shot.
Sony A9 with 90mm Sony macro lens. A plant that the bees have gone nuts over. 20 FPS with a 5 gig buffer. Figuring out the right focus area was critical. Then it was all about stubbornness.
Obviously, you have a good camera - :)
Seriously, this is a first class image. Amazing sharpness on both the flower and the bee.
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Obviously, you have a good camera - :)
I am assuming this is a tongue-in-cheek comment...
My money is on Martin!
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Rob, from this and other posts I get the impression that you have a Northern European attitude to bugs.
Of all kinds!
They have their place and I mine, and never the twain should meet.
;-)
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Sounds like loads of fun. I would rather have a colonoscopy to be honest.
I think there are clubs where people pay for experiences like that.
But hey, we gotta embrace and celebrate that too, or be called reactionary old squares. On the matter of squares, I have grown to prefer the appellation L7 which I picked up on in Wooly Bully; far more graphically succint, don't you think?
;-)
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I am assuming this is a tongue-in-cheek comment...
My money is on Martin!
I do have a great camera. I haven’t liked every camera I have owned, most are just tools, but I like this one a lot. Of course the camera plays it’s part. I wouldn’t tackle this with my old AFI AF. There is some skill to using the kit obviously.
Thanks Tony.
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I am assuming this is a tongue-in-cheek comment...
My money is on Martin!
Tony, it was, indeed, a tongue-in-cheek comment. As are 90% of my posts. And in 99% of those I don't use any emoticons. This time, I did just to make sure, and I still failed.
Anyway, I would be proud to have both, a picture like this and A9 as well. And that is meant without any tongue-in-cheek yellow devil.
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Tony, it was, indeed, a tongue-in-cheek comment. As are 90% of my posts. And in 99% of those I don't use any emoticons. This time, I did just to make sure, and I still failed.
Anyway, I would be proud to have both, a picture like this and A9 as well. And that is meant without any tongue-in-cheek yellow devil.
No, I don't think you failed at what you were communicating, at least as far as I was concerned, but given the level of debate on the forums these days for sure some knucklehead would have drawn the wrong conclusion...
This way, there is no doubt that the photographer takes the image, the camera, however well specified, is merely a tool in the hands of the photographer, not the defining factor in the merits of the image!
We all (three) know this - I think (and hope) - but almost for sure someone would have been gnawing on your arse not realising that it was indeed a tongue-in-cheek comment...
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I do have a great camera. I haven’t liked every camera I have owned, most are just tools, but I like this one a lot. Of course the camera plays it’s part. I wouldn’t tackle this with my old AFI AF. There is some skill to using the kit obviously.
Thanks Tony.
I have only disliked one camera that I bought, and that was a Mamiya tlr that accompanied my Rolleiflex. Unlike those who espouse short focal lengths for portraits, I never have liked that perspective for headshots. The Mamiya let me use a 180mm that was great. I had to keep it longer than I wanted to, because though I eventualy earned enough to go 500C, it took a while before I could afford the 150mm for it. That said, if a 180mm had existed for 'blad at the time, that's what I'd have bought. It wasn't the Mamiya lens that was the problem, it was the dreadful system for parallax compensation etc. The Mamiya body was no match for my Rollei - but then nothing with a fixed lens was.
Some 6x7 cameras were nice to operate but didn't always do what they were meant to do.
All my other cameras were the best I could find at the time, so not much point in complaining...
Rob
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Tony, it was, indeed, a tongue-in-cheek comment. As are 90% of my posts. And in 99% of those I don't use any emoticons. This time, I did just to make sure, and I still failed.
Anyway, I would be proud to have both, a picture like this and A9 as well. And that is meant without any tongue-in-cheek yellow devil.
I took it as tongue in cheek but doubt it would have bothered me much anyway. I have heard it all.
Honestly though it’s an Interesting point. Im suspicious of any skill in photography that is subject to technological disruption. In the old days the ability to use a light meter well and decide from your e6 clips if you wanted to push or pull and by how much was an actual skill. Now we have 14 stops of dynamic range. So you see how useful that skill turned out to be. Technology definitely helped with this image under discussion. I have to acknowledge that although it’s not the whole story.
Out of interest the bee image was shot at 5000 iso I think at 1/4000. I figured sharp was more important than noise in this image. I am a bit surprised at how clean the image is. I did do some noise reduction in LR but that’s it.
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I took it as tongue in cheek but doubt it would have bothered me much anyway. I have heard it all.
Honestly though it’s an Interesting point. Im suspicious of any skill in photography that is subject to technological disruption. In the old days the ability to use a light meter well and decide from your e6 clips if you wanted to push or pull and by how much was an actual skill. Now we have 14 stops of dynamic range. So you see how useful that skill turned out to be. Technology definitely helped with this image under discussion. I have to acknowledge that although it’s not the whole story.
Out of interest the bee image was shot at 5000 iso I think at 1/4000. I figured sharp was more important than noise in this image. I am a bit surprised at how clean the image is. I did do some noise reduction in LR but that’s it.
You have touched on an interesting point with your remarks about meters.
In some ways, being dependent on one and using either Ektachrome or Kodachrome, one was able to develop a good eye for how contrast was going to play out, and that also helped one develop a personal style, because it led to the shooting (outdoors) at particular times of day just in order to get the light one loved.
Today, with all the differences, I'm conscious of paying too little attention to many aspects of a photograph, and just make it because I can and the tech permits it. Not good, actually, because it stops one considering many other aspects that make or break the look of an image. To be fair, I write from what's now a non-pro perspective; were I still working, the case would probably be different, and I'd still be using my old methods but projecting onto a sensor instead, so the product might not really be very different.
When I first bought a digital camera I did test it out against an incident light meter because I got the impression the aim was similar to transparency work: don't blow important highlights. In the end, I gave in to the ease of using Matrix (a Nikon option) metering which seems to be pretty good. That said, I rather suspect that I would perhaps get better files less dependent on post-exposure tricks if I'd continued along the external meter route; but hey, reality kicks in along with an undertone of "what diffence does it make" that saddens me at myself, a little - just a little.
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Thanks but in the interest of honesty let me explain how I actually got this shot.
Sony A9 with 90mm Sony macro lens. A plant that the bees have gone nuts over. 20 FPS with a 5 gig buffer. Figuring out the right focus area was critical. Then it was all about stubbornness.
Are you apologizing for your toolset? Or the application thereof? If so, why? You got the shot, however you did it. It's superb.
And, instead of using maddogmurph's macro strategy, you caught the bee in flight AND it lived to see another day.
Stubbornness counts. In contrast, maddogmurph's stubbornness is evidenced by his willingness to venture into the wilderness and get his jeep stuck in monsoon mud in order to bring us his amazing images. :) :) :)