Thursday, May 1, 2008

Cheap Trick #1


Hungry Hoverfly series 1-3
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.
Sometimes I get lucky and find a critter that’s so caught up in what it’s doing that it doesn’t care about me and the camera. That’s the situation that I found myself in when I started shooting this Hoverfly. The only problem was the wind –it was blowing constantly and gusting from time to time. Way too much movement to shoot above life size, and I really wanted to push myself to shoot at high magnification. So I used my left hand, palm up, to hold onto the stem of the flower while I rested a Canon MPE-65mm extended to 4x on the same hand while I held a Canon 40D in my right.

Since the lens and the subject were resting on the same surface I could move and still get a razor sharp image. I just moved the lens very slowly back and forth on my hand until the area of focus was where I wanted it. It’s a cheap trick that only works with cooperative subjects –one that comes in handy on windy days…

1 comment:

Coppertop said...

I love it when the insects ignore you. There's the anticipation that these guys will fly off at any second and the excitement that each extra shot you can real off is a bonus of some sort.