Late Year Visit to Thursley.

Took a visit on the first weekend of October to Thursley Common in the hope of seeing some late darter dragonflies.  The day was fairly sunny so I was not to be disappointed, as there were several black and common darters about.  The warmth of the boardwalks were attracting them, so unfortunately I did not manage to get any on the heather like last year.

However I was lucky enough to get a full 1:1 shot of this clasped black darter by lying on the boardwalk next to them.

Female Black Darter being clasped by male
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/9, 1/60 sec, ISO400)
Female Black Darter being clasped by male
Female Black Darter being clasped by male.  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM F2.8 Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F9 1/60.  Natural Light.

Before I mention the next Black Darter shots of the same individual, I’d better put the Common Darter in first.

Common Darter
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO400)
Common Darter
Common Darter (Slightly cropped). Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

The next set of shots are from an experiment I did in the field.  As the subjects were static and the exposure is difficult to judge – I decided to shot some bracketed 3 shot bursts ( -1 1/3 , 0 & +1 & 1/3 ev).  I figured this would give some latitude if the cameras metering got confused with all the dark subject on a bright board walk.  Also I thought it would be interesting to see if an HDR of these would be any better than a normal conversion.  As it happened the 0 ev shot was the one I used to process the single image shown below.

First I will show the single image with only RAW processing and then a 3 shot Exposure Fusion Merge in Photomatix of the same shot.

Black Darter - Single Image
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO400)
Black Darter – Single Image
Black Darter – Single Image.  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

Black Darter - HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix).
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11.31, 1/99 sec, ISO400)
Black Darter – HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix).
Black Darter – HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix).  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

Then I post processed both of these in Photoshop and Topaz Adjust 5 plugin.

Black Darter - Single Image - PP with Topaz Adjust.
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO400)
Black Darter – Single Image – PP with Topaz Adjust.
Black Darter – Single Image – PP with Topaz Adjust.  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

Black Darter - HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix) & PP with Topaz Adjust.
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11.31, 1/99 sec, ISO400)
Black Darter – HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix) & PP with Topaz Adjust.
Black Darter – HDR (3 shots fused in Photomatix) & PP with Topaz Adjust.  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

Finally I was trialing a new version of Topaz Labs Simplify 4 out – and this is the single image with that and Adjust used on it.

Black Darter - Single Image PP with Topaz Adjust & Simplify.
Canon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO400)
Black Darter – Single Image PP with Topaz Adjust & Simplify.
Black Darter – Single Image PP with Topaz Adjust & Simplify.  Taken on Canon 50D with Canon 100mm USM Macro Lens.  ISO 400 F11 1/100.  Natural Light.

From this experiment I’m seeing little difference in the shots.  So something I might try again, but at the moment don’t see any advantage in macro photography for it from these images.

Chris

I've been taking macro photography from 2004. I use both Canon film and digital cameras.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *