Image of the Day - Along Came a Spider

I must be in another macro-mood. I was sitting out on the back porch and looked up. There were two or three of these leggy dudes hanging from the roof over my head. Well... call for Mr Macro!

The roof is beige, so I adjusted the white balance in RAW to "tungsten" to give the picture a bit of life. I flipped the image so he would look to be right side up. With only a bit of sharpening and contrast boost, this little guy came to life.

Bee in the Plumbago

Just once I wish The Good Lord would send me a respectable sized critter for this type of picture. This was a really pint size bee. The crop here is huge

Shot this with the Canon 70-300 f4-5.6 USM IS at ISO 100 f6.3 1/200th. Pretty good considering.

Watch, I'll get a great white of bees next time... Lord? Sir? Never mind. Thanks.

Oh, OK, Here is Another of My Tiny Buddy

For larger image click on picture.

This is another of the 1/4 inch garden spiders.

Well, Let's See What That Macro Can Do

For larger image click on picture.

I was out in the garden this morning and saw this tiny spider, about 1/4 of an inch long. So I decided to push the limits on the new macro. Not bad!

The bane of shooting images like this is wind. With a DOF measured in fractions of an inch, getting something in focus is a challenge. Each breath of wind moves the subject in and out of the POF. Thank goodness for digital cameras. You just shoot a ton of images, and one of them is bound to be in focus.

Among the Roses

For larger image click on picture.

Busy Bee

Same image as in the previous post before cropping and color correction.

For larger image click on picture.

Right Place, Right Time

For larger image click on picture.

This was an interesting one. First, I shot it in RAW which raises all sorts of interesting color management issues. It took just short of forever to get that right in post-processing using both PS and Lightroom. Secondly, I don't have a macro for this camera, so I shot it in the macro function for my 35-105, my "walking around" lens. I just opened the aperture up and let the camera pick the shutter speed. I used manual focus due to the total lack of DOF. The camera set at 1/4000... geeze, I have NEVER shot a picture at such a high shutter speed.

Results:

1. OK clarity, but wish I had a better lens;

2. Great stop action, it's not everyday you catch a bee's wings in motion, and

3. Color came out pretty good after much post-processing futching.

Creepy Crawly

For larger image click on picture.

I shot this little guy last night at Pebble. He was spinning his web under a light in the rain at the bank. I had a heck of a time keeping glare and dazzling out of the picture. I shot it in RAW, and ran it through both PS and Lightroom.

Festival of Film #5 - Monarch of the Mission

For larger image click on picture.

Busy in the Bushes

I added a couple "before" images to show how I got from here to there.

For larger images click on picture.

Monarchs Return to Central Coast

For full size picture click on image.