Category: Macro/Closeup

Day 11 – Rose

VelvetRose

This morning I decided to ditch church in favor of the Harry and David Rose Garden. Most of the roses had seen better days but there  were still a few in prime condition. I grabbed the Velvet 85, the 7D Mark II and a set of extension tubes, along with my tripod, of course. What I learned today is that the difference between f2.8 and f1.8 is huge on the Velvet 85. This image was captured at f1.8 using one medium extension tube. I added a high pass filter in photoshop to just bring out those edges a little more. 

Day 10 – Another Sunflower

Sunflower_081019

Different day, different camera, different lens. I had some business at the Talent Library this morning so I slung the M100 with Trio28 over my shoulder for the wolk over there. Just for fun I threw the new extension tubes I just bought for the M cameras into the bag. This was shot on the velvet setting at my favorite sunflower patch. I wasn’t too happy with the grey area in the lower right corner so I started throwing on textures. I got through about half my texture files before I found a combination I liked. But I am happy with what I can do with the Trio 28 and a small extension tube.

Yellow Bumblebee

BumblebeeTx

I’m running late again with the image of the week. I’ve been thinking, as we enter July that we should have mid-year resolutions. One of mine is to get my image of the week out by Sunday. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I have to say I’d never seen an all yellow bumble bee until the last year or two. I’m not sure if that means they are new to our area or I am just seeing them now that I have been chasing pollinators around with my camera.

This one was shot at North Mountain Park hand held with the M3 and an 18-150 mm lens. I got a lot of out of focus bees but this one came out just right. At the last minute I thought why not add a texture. As usual I thought it looked a little better with than without.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea2

My Hydrangea is blooming in full glory again. This year it is more blue than purple, probably because I forgot to feed it this spring. Either way it takes my breath away. This was taken with the Lensbaby Velvet 85 lens on the new Mirroless Canon EOS R. I cropped it to a vertical and added a texture, some sharpening and a slight vignette. Oh, yes, and happy Nature Photography Day!

Mushrooms

Mushrooms

The Oregon Coast project is still alive thanks to a brief window of halfway decent weather this weekend. As I am currently teaching a class in Macro photography I felt compelled to put my pixels where my mouth is. Though I had a very successful day shooting tulips at Shore Acres, it was these mushrooms from a patch of forest near the Oregon Dunes that stole the day. I shot it handheld but it took six tries to get one that was properly framed and focused. Well worth all the contortions I had to go through to get down to their level.

Sand dollar Macro

SanddollarTw

It was pointed out to me this week that I haven’t been posting much lately. I acknowledged that this was true. But when I went and looked at my files and realized I hadn’t taken a single picture in February and the month was half over I resolved that something needed to change. Between the weather and a ridiculously busy schedule for a retired person I just haven’t had the time or opportunity to do what I love. So, this morning I headed into the tiny studio with some sea shells and a flashlight to see what I could come up with. I rested this sand dollar on top of the flashlight and was pleased with the result. As always I thought I didn’t need a texture but when I put one on it did seem to improve the image.

Echinacea with Bee

Echinaceawbee

You may have seen this one before if you followed my 100 days of flowers project. It is getting to be that time of year when there isn’t much new to photograph and it’s time to review what I have accomplished this year, put together a calendar and a year in review photo book. So, while I haven’t been through all the photos yet this one keeps coming up as a strong contender for image of the year for me. It did make the cover of my calendar for 2019 as well as the feature photo for August. I’ve also been working on a sign for a friends new pollinator garden. This one did not make the cut for that because you can’t see the front of the bee but as an art piece I still think it’s a winner.