The Cormorant, the Dragonfly, and the Bee: macro

Showing posts with label macro. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Signs of Life

As winter draws to an end, new growth begins. While spring doesn't officially commence until March 19, the crocuses are blooming.

Here are some photos taken with my macro lens.

Enjoy!

Bloomin' Crocii

Upshot

See Through

As a slight departure, this next photo is clearly not a crocus. It is spirea. The new growth captured is less than an inch across.

Mini-Life

I grabbed this shot just as this little fellow was leaving:

BeeLeaving

Lightbulb

Before the Planet

Double Flash

Behold

Two days after taking the above photos, we got some early morning snow.

Snow Effect

Floating Island

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Summer has arrived, yet some of my recent spring flower photos haven't been blogged. This post begins to rectify that.

Below I present some favorites.
As is my usual custom, photos are taken with natural light, hand held, most with my 60mm (120mm equivalent) Olympus macro lens, unless otherwise stated.

Enjoy!

This first shot was taken with my 12-40mm lens at 40mm. Taken in the morning after some rain the night before.

After the Rain

Here I'm experimenting with using my telephoto lens for shots of nearby flowers. This focal length is 258mm (516mm equivalent). To take this I have to stand at least three feet away or more due to the minimum focus distance requirement of this lens.

Blue Jester

Another shot with my telephoto at 240mm (480mm equivalent):

Bleeding Heart Arch

The rest of the photos are taken with my 60mm macro. This lens proves itself time and again to be my favorite for all close flora and fauna.

Yellow Licks

Top Down Fun

Sunlit Yellow Repro Center

Simple Elegance

While this may look like a specimen on a slide, it is actually a shot taken at extremely close range of lungwort (pulmonaria) just beginning to bloom. The item pictured is roughly one quarter inch across. I've learned that the odd name "lungwort" comes from the leaves of this plant (not shown), which appear similar to lungs.

New Life Forming

Six-sided Symmetry

Look at the natural checkerboard petals on this guinea-hen plant:

Checkerboard

Here's a crop of the above photo to get a closer view of the anthers carrying pollen on the stamens.

Pollen at Checkerboard Center

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Garden Flora

This spring I am finding I quite enjoy going into the garden and taking pictures every day. The garden just beckons, especially in the late afternoon sun.

These are all hand-held with my 60mm macro lens, in natural light.

Pink in the Garden

In this next photo, the powerfully strong sun backlighting caused the lens (and camera) to create a pleasant "lens flare" that appears as sweeping shadow lines in the background in the original out-of-camera capture.

Sunswept

Smoke Bush Textures

Smoky Red

Red on Display

Monday, May 1, 2017

Macro Monday

The buds and blossoms of spring merit a closer look. Actually, a really close look.
Today's post contains some recent favorite shots taken with my 60mm macro lens, some at 1:1 magnification. All photos are taken with natural light and with no props to modify the light; all photos are handheld except for one taken with a tripod.

Our redbud tree is remarkably enjoyable to observe this time of year. Here's a sample taken after a recent rain.

Redbud Water Drops

Azalea Performance

Soaking Up Some Sun

Skywards

Paperbark Curl

While walking around the Ashland Reservoir, I met a woman walking in the opposite direction who told me to look for this turtle she saw a few minutes earlier on her walk. No way I would have noticed this small creature, an inch in length, had I not received a warning. She told me about it because she saw I was taking pictures. The turtle's color was extremely dark, so it made for an extra photographic challenge to take some of his highlights out of the shadows. Needless to say, the end of my macro lens was larger than the turtle and less than an inch away to take this photo.