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I have not had much success this year finding insects, spiders etc to photograph. Imagine my surprise when today while gardening I noticed there were a lot of wasps and flies on a fatsia plant which is in flower at the moment. I rushed in to get my FZ330, which is rigged with a Raynox 150 and KX800 flash for this size of subject.
When I got back there was a butterfly on the fatsia. I don't see butterflies very often, and hardly at all this year. But I blew this opportunity. The FZ330 wasn't set up for it and I had a choice of taking off the Raynox or going indoors (10 metres or so) and a grabbing another camera that was ready to go, which is what I did. Too late. The butterfly flew off as I came back.
So I turned to the wasps and flies. I was out of practice and slow to get into the swing of it. And I was making mistakes. One was to have the flash level too high. The fatsia flowers blew very easily but when I turned the power down to avoid that I was concerned that the wasps and flies (some of which were very dark) would not have enough light to make a decent shot out of. So I decided to turn the power back up a stop and let the flowers blow a little. When I came to process the images I realised that was a mistake. I should have followed my usual procedure of avoiding blown highlights and making do with whatever I was left with.
Another mistake was to go too close in, resulting in wings being cut off by the edge of the frame. After a while I moved out a bit to try to keep the whole insects in the frame, but at that point it started raining. There were no more insects on the fatsia for the rest of the day.
FWIW, here are some of the images, warts and all. The raw files were batch processed in DXO PhotoLab, Silkypix and Lightroom, with some image-specific adjustments in Lightroom.
#1
1397 01 2018_11_12 P1560286_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#2
1397 09 2018_11_12 P1560308_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#3
1397 07 2018_11_12 P1560303_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#4
1397 08 2018_11_12 P1560305_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#5
1397 11 2018_11_12 P1560312_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#6
1397 25 2018_11_12 P1560346_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#7
1397 26 2018_11_12 P1560347_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#8
+1397 27 2018_11_12 P1560348_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
When I got back there was a butterfly on the fatsia. I don't see butterflies very often, and hardly at all this year. But I blew this opportunity. The FZ330 wasn't set up for it and I had a choice of taking off the Raynox or going indoors (10 metres or so) and a grabbing another camera that was ready to go, which is what I did. Too late. The butterfly flew off as I came back.
So I turned to the wasps and flies. I was out of practice and slow to get into the swing of it. And I was making mistakes. One was to have the flash level too high. The fatsia flowers blew very easily but when I turned the power down to avoid that I was concerned that the wasps and flies (some of which were very dark) would not have enough light to make a decent shot out of. So I decided to turn the power back up a stop and let the flowers blow a little. When I came to process the images I realised that was a mistake. I should have followed my usual procedure of avoiding blown highlights and making do with whatever I was left with.
Another mistake was to go too close in, resulting in wings being cut off by the edge of the frame. After a while I moved out a bit to try to keep the whole insects in the frame, but at that point it started raining. There were no more insects on the fatsia for the rest of the day.
FWIW, here are some of the images, warts and all. The raw files were batch processed in DXO PhotoLab, Silkypix and Lightroom, with some image-specific adjustments in Lightroom.
#1
1397 01 2018_11_12 P1560286_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#2
1397 09 2018_11_12 P1560308_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#3
1397 07 2018_11_12 P1560303_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#4
1397 08 2018_11_12 P1560305_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#5
1397 11 2018_11_12 P1560312_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#6
1397 25 2018_11_12 P1560346_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#7
1397 26 2018_11_12 P1560347_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#8
+1397 27 2018_11_12 P1560348_DxO SP7 LR7 1400h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr