Photography Fiend...

I am actually amazed at how many blogs I have posted this month. I just seem to want to find any excuse to use my camera. Since buying the 5D Mk 2 I have found infinitely more motivation for this than I have had in years, surely a good thing.

Working a five day week puts some restrictions on my ability to find new things to photograph, as does my addiction to macro shots! On week nights, I am generally limited to what I can find in my garden, and tonight is no exception.

In the coming weeks I hope to buy a 50mm prime lens, I want to make more of an effort to photograph people, specifically my niece and nephew.

In the meantime, more macro! (therefore all at 105mm)

1/320 at F2.8

1/200 F4

1/4000 at F3.5

Spring blues...

Hopefully the cooler weather won't hamper my plans to get some further floral photography in over the weekend. In the meantime, here are a couple shots from a few weeks ago.



105mm 1/200 at F6.3



105mm 1/250 at F7.1

Self Portrait

While never a fan of any kind of photo of myself, I was interested to experiment with self portraits. Mainly as a way of practicing with lighting and skin tone. I am reasonably confident with anything nature related, but people photography has never been my thing.

Anyway, this was handheld with natural light, hoping that auto-focus would make up for me not being able to do it myself.

I'm still not exactly a fan of photo's of myself, but I am slightly impressed that the capture is fairly natural and reasonably well composed.

102mm 1/2000 at F4, ISO 3200

Where's the sun gone?!

Sadly the lovely weather of late appears to have gone, for now. This bright shot of a dandelion creates a nice feeling of sunshine, or at least it does for me.

105mm 1/125 at F18

Viola's

Yes, more macro, but this time a mixture of what appears to be two common colour themes on this blog, purple and yellow.

1/125 at F3.5

1/160 at F3.5

Arachnid

Same spider, different angles and ideas. These were shot in low light, and as such are exposed between ISO 800 and 1600. I tried using live view for these, and found it rather difficult to master (and clearly still haven't!). Certainly a technique that I want to make more use of though, as the ability to zoom in 10x into the image for focusing is potentially very useful.

I think this shot benefits from a mono conversion, the sky was nice and blue, but with the spider silhouetted it somehow cried out for a change. 1/2000 at F7.1

A full frame sensor, coupled with a 105mm macro lens doesn't always give the zoom required, but this was a very small spider. I like the composition of this image, the background is dull, but still somehow attractive with the web maintaining some focus. 1/125 at F5.6

I can't decide whether or not I like this one, I guess I must do otherwise it wouldn't have been posted. It's not exactly razor sharp, but I like the background colours, even though the rosemary bush behind the spider is fairly visible. 1/125 at F5.6

Pollination

An image from a few days ago that I wasn't overly happy with originally. A slight crop seems to have made all the difference.

105mm 1/320 at F7.1

Insects and Bluebells

Normal service resumed (EOS 5D Mark II), and more of the same.... I really need to broaden my horizons I think!



105mm 1/320 at F4.5



105mm 1/320 at F7.1



300mm 1/320 at F4.5



300mm 1/640 at F4.5

40D Shots

I was interested to see how my old 40D would compare to my new 5D Mark II, not well frankly, but I'm quite happy with these images.



105mm 1/320 at F5



105mm 1/160 at F7.1



105mm 1/250 at F5.6

Yet another ladybird...

A rather heavily cropped image taken a while ago (crop required care of the full frame sensor on my EOS 5D Mark II). I think I am starting to see why macro 'pros' do focus stacking, the depth of field is tiny!

105mm 1/125 at F4

Wildflowers

More 'weeds', or wildflowers as I think I prefer! I particularly like the background on these.



105mm 1/800 at F3.2



105mm 1/1000 at F2.8

Something different

Electricity pylon's are an eye-sore to most, but I think this makes for a nice image.


47mm 1/400 at F10

Sunset

While not a lovely orange sunset, I like how the sky silhouette's these trees.


47mm 1/1000 at F10

Where did this come from?!

I thought these had all been killed off by unusual bugs a few years ago, but to my surprise, hidden under brambles and other foliage was this very photogenic tullip.


105mm 1/2000 at F3.2

Bluebells

Not nearly as many of these out as I'd hoped this weekend, giving me yet more excuses to do macro shots. Hoping to get some wide-angle shots once there are more about though.


105mm 1/640 at F3.5

Unusual surroundings?

This was probably one of the more difficult photo's I've taken. Getting a good angle for the photo, and to make the ladybirds visible, made more difficult by and annoyingly placed fence stump!

1/800 at F3.5

Daisies

A re-post of this image in higher quality, this is probably one of my favorites taken in recent weeks.

1/3200 at F3.5



And another one...

1/1250 at F3.2

It seems that blogspot compresses the images rather a bit, think I will make use of Flickr moving forward!

John

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnlgardiner/

Steve

Steve - check out his blog Indelible Images
1/1250 at F2.8

More weeds and bugs....

A trip to Marlborough this weekend in search of some more 'urban' subjects turned in to another nature orientated photo day. I have to say, I have never seen so many ladybirds in my life, and to think a few years ago there was talk of them disappearing. Most of what I shot is the type of thing we typically take for granted, but I think macro photography especially allows one to truly appreciate things in a different light.

1/200 at F5

1/500 at F4

1/8000 at F3.2

1/320 at F7.1

1/2000 at F3.2

1/400 at F6.3