A disturbing trend in the heat of the day in this fallen world.
This was taken at the equivalent of 560mm at the minimum focussing distance of a metre.
A disturbing trend in the heat of the day in this fallen world.
This was taken at the equivalent of 560mm at the minimum focussing distance of a metre.
A female Common Bluetail had her abdomen chewed off at the 1st segment by one of her own. What happened next could just make some sick; after devouring the abdomen, her cannibalistic kin came back for her head. A sad, ugly reality of life in this fallen world.
The damselfly was about a metre (a little over 1 yard) out on the lake and was back-lit by the late morning sun. A 2-stop positive exposure compensation was apparently still not sufficient so some local brightening was needed in post to adequately light up the damselfly.
Well, it wasn’t really that quick because when we chanced upon the grasshopper, its head and thorax were already out and between then and until it managed to shed its exoskeleton, it was a good 20 minutes.
With a fast enough 1/500-second shutter speed and fast autofocus, nailing this swinging dragonfly was thankfully quite straight forward.
Just a 1/3-stop positive exposure compensation to bring out the colours. At f/2.8, the depth-of-field was rather thin, just enough to focus on the lip of the orchid. This thin depth-of-field is particularly useful here in isolating the lip in a busy environment.
This was a 60-percent crop of the original image. The grasshopper was actually about an inch or 2-1/2 cm long.
Noise level out of the 2013 four-thirds sensor at ISO 2500 came to some 9 odd and had need to be fixed in post.
The lighting in the tank was pretty dim. ISO was pushed up to 3200 for this one (the maximum that I would usually go for this camera) to get a hand-holdable shutter speed. And noise level came up to some 17 odd that was fixed with Neat Image in post.
A stop of over-exposure was applied to the capture so that the back-lit butterfly won’t turn out a silhouette. Only a little tweak of contrast and cropping to compose were done in post.
With the lens allowing me to focus as close as less than 3 feet (0.9 meters) away, this bug was eventually spooked by my close proximity and flew up to a nearby tree.