With the appalling weather lately, and it being breeding season, the bird photography has taken a back seat. There haven't been many insects to chase either, so I had a dabble in the garden pond, which certainly has plenty of water in it. It's full of tadpoles that don't seem to be developing beyond the two-legged stage, and there are some newts as well. I had a dredge around with a net to see what was lurking, and then tried a bit of dark-field macro photography on the results. This involves placing semi-opaque or translucent subjects on a glass stage over a black background, and lighting from below at 45 degrees from the camera axis. In theory, one gets an image with a pure black background and light shining through the subject. It's not as easy as it sounds. The water has to be spotlessly clean, as all the detritus shows up as bright spots, so you spend an inordinate amount of time cloning-out the unwanted bits, but the end result can be quite nice. One of the problems is that unless you are an expert on freshwater life, you don't know what you are photographing, but it's fun!
Newt sp. elt: this is a very small one - about 5mm long.
Here's one a bit older - the gills are obvious, and in contradistinction to frog tadpoles, the forelimbs develop first. The hindlimb buds are seen as bulges further down the body.
Combining the dark-field illumination with a little fill light from above brings out more detail.
Crustacean sp. I've no idea what these tiny shrimps are called. The larger one is about 7mm long. I'll have to buy a book!
Water Beetle (possibly Family Dytiscidae). Solid subjects give a rim effect.
But with a little fill light from above, become more life-like, but it shows the dirt more. I like to think of this as the "Starship Coleoptera".
All the images were taken with a Canon EOS 7D, 50mm F2.5 macro lens with 25mm extension tube linked to an old Sunpack ring flash that's been cluttering up my cupboard for years. Even if you get accused of hoarding, never throw anything away!
None of the animals were harmed by this activity, and went straight back in the pond.
No comments:
Post a Comment