A few nights ago I was watching a video on basic macro photography tips for good bug photos. Today I decided to go try them out!
The video was pretty simple overall – you need a macro lens (or an extension tube), a camera (of course), and a flash diffuser. All I have is the camera and a lens with a “macro” mode – not as good as a dedicated macro, but still acceptable.
The entire setup. A less floppy diffuser would be nice.
For the diffuser, I cut a hole in a piece of printer paper and stuck it over the lens. It works pretty well!
Look at those wings!
Weirdly, about half the bugs I approached flew away instantly. No idea why…
Bug’s Eye View of the Average Macro PhotographerA caterpillar! I wonder what the long hairs are for…
Walking around the yard peering into tall grass and plants looking for bugs, I felt like a Bug Catcher from Pokemon…
To be fair, this is probably the closest I’ll get to experiencing what it’s like to document Pokemon using a Pokedex.
Eugh. This isn’t actually a spider! It’s from the order Opiliones, which are arachnids, but not spiders. It’s also commonly known as a Daddy Long Legs, or Harvestmen. This one had a golden iridescent sheen to it – probably something about the structure of its scales refracts/reflects just the right wavelengths of light. I didn’t get a single crisp Bumblebee photo – they were always moving around, even when sipping nectar from these blackberry flowers.An ant thing. This was larger than a common black ant. This one posed for me! When I got close, it switched positions a couple of times as if trying to let me get several angles. No idea what this little dude is, but he has cool patterns on him.Another view of this ladybug.Ladybug isn’t bothered by how evil this plant looks.She crawls right up the spikes.Oh, bye!
I also got a few nice non-bug shots:
Maybe next I’ll try 3D printing an extension tube to let me use this lens for better macro shots (or one of my other lenses).
ChatÃmanwi, or Mary’s Peak, is the tallest peak in the Oregon Coastal Range.It’s about a 45 minute drive from home, and has beautiful views and flowers in the spring.
In the middle of moving, I somehow still found time to buy another camera . . . To be fair to myself, I’ve pared my collection from about 30 to only 8 I plan to keep, so I’m doing good.
The limitations of my compact “prosumer” digital cameras (dynamic range, small sensor size) had me wanting to upgrade to a DSLR, so when I found this Nikon D200 (A high-end APS-C sensor camera from 2008), I jumped at the opportunity to snatch it, batteries, and a lens for $77.
The white spot at the upper right is lens flare – you can’t see the sun in the photo, but light from it is causing this artifact on the image.
Today I needed a break from working on moving plans. So I took the D200 out to the Mary’s River natural area, a seasonal wetland about 15 minutes from where I live.
One advantage of the larger sensor (about 6x larger than my other cameras) is the bokeh–or background blur–I can achieve with it. However, I have to be more careful of focus. Here, you can see the flower isn’t totally crisp.
In the spring, it has a ton of flowers – now less, but I still managed to see around a dozen different types.
This blackberry blossom had a ton of little beetles (or weevils?) crawling among the stamen. Poison oak was also aplenty. It’s easy to spot at this early stage, because of its red, shiny new leaves.I don’t actually know if I react to it – so far, I’ve either been extraordinarily lucky, or don’t react to its oil.Another bug! Notice the sunspots right above the bug – the flat sides are due to the physical shape of the opening in the camera lens. Some people don’t like this effect – I do.A weevil friend! You can tell due to its distinct “snoot” and antenna attached halfway up the snoot.For this photo, to get everything sharp, I had to use a smaller aperture (the hole in the lens that lets light through) – the smaller the hole, the deeper the area in focus is. The larger the hole, the less deep the area of focus is. Most of the photos above used the largest opening size in the lens. There were SO MANY DAISIES. I really wanted to pick a bouquet, but didn’t want to carry it (in addition to my camera and bag) all the way back. Wasps are pollinators too, but I still prefer honeybees 😛
One nice thing about this camera (and its 10MP sensor) is that – as long as the image is in focus enough – I can crop quite a bit. The wasp image above was about 8x larger than what you’re seeing, but due to the higher resolution of the sensor, I can crop in to just what I care about afterwards.
This old car is hanging halfway over the edge of the river bank, supported by several trees grown through it. It might be a Fiat 850 or something close, but I can’t tell for sure.I love the colors and very soft grain of this photo.More daisies . . . …Woah, not a daisy!This might be my favorite photo of this whole walk. These flowers are beautiful, and the bokeh, lighting, and colors are fantastic.I’m not sure what bird this was.Two bugs sharing a daisy!Delightfully evil looking plant.This bumblebee was a happy accident – I was snapping photos of something else and heard a buzzing near my ear!The 2015 Chevrolet Volt isn’t the sleekest of cars, but I like mine.
All for now!
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A blog post written on the same day as the post is about? Wild!
I continue to forget to take pictures of my breakfasts – generally by the time I get breakfast I’m too focused on eating to remember! But, this morning I walked to a nearby grocery store to grab bananas, yogurt, granola, and orange juice. I also grabbed a few mini oranges for snacks throughout the next few days. The hostel I’m in has a kitchen, which means I can actually cook if I want! I will be taking advantage of it – being able to make my own food will be nice.
After breakfast (and writing the past two blog posts), I decided to head out to a nearby park. I wanted to spend the day very relaxed, so walking around the park seemed like a good idea (and a good way to learn my new camera)!
This flowerbed is right outside the hostel.OLYMPUS C4100
Honestly, not a lot to say here – most of these pictures are from the park!
These tiles were cute!
One thing I did notice walking around (that I had heard before) was that there are a lot of vending machines – on the corners of streets, tucked among residential houses. Mostly they have drinks, and one even had alcohol? This is how I know the legal drinking age in Japan is apparently 20 years.
Of course, I also took pictures of vehicles. There are a ton of kei vehicles here (Kei vehicles are a specific class of car in Japan, limited to a certain size and engine displacement. In return for the limits, they are cheaper and get tax benefits compared to normal cars)
This moped had a “The North Face” and Prius Hybrid Energy badge on it. Somehow I doubt this scooter is a hybrid…
There are still more mopeds here, and more bikes even. I’d say there are more cars than mopeds, but about the same number of bikes as cars.
…
More pillars for Felix!There were a lot of gardens as part of the park. I sat here for a while, reading.If you look really close, this is a selfie!I thought this light looked really cool.These lanterns were just hanging above this pathway.I liked the light sort of filtering into this small courtyard.This clock looked really cool among the trees!I really liked this poppy against the tile.This light tower looked cool framed through this wire fence.Another light tower, framed through tree branches.
As I was sitting here writing this post, another guest checked in – she is here from China, and brought her Erhu (a two-stringed traditional Chinese instrument) and she played a bit for us! She played Master Oogway’s theme from Kung Fu Panda – and it was beautiful. She’s been practicing for 20 years!
This, obviously, is not her – this is just the first good public domain image I could find for an Erhu.
After the park, I walked back to the hostel, stopping at a local grocery store for a couple of snacks.
After sitting and writing this blog post for a while, I left again, this time with several other folks from the Hostel, to get sushi at a nearby sushi conveyor belt place.
I think I got about 7 plates, which cost only about $13.75!
At this place, you order on a tablet, and then (sometimes as little as 60 seconds later!) your food zooms up on the belt next to the table.
The squid, close upCoffee jelly for desert!
After the dinner, we walked back to the hostel with a quick stop at a convenience store for drinks and snacks, and then we came back to the hostel to sit around the main area and talk and laugh.
Today’s travels (4/13) have me headed from Lyon to Lille, both in France. Tomorrow, train schedules willing, I’ll finally be in Amsterdam – but to be honest, I’ve loved my time in Lyon and am sad to leave.
There are gonna be a LOT of photos in this one, since I spent most of the 11th walking around the amazing Parc de la Tête d’Or – or “Park of the head of gold”. According to Benoit (pronounced like Ben-whee), a local I met, legend has it that Louis 16 buried a head made of gold shortly after this park’s construction. Digging is, of course, forbidden. Wikipedia’s version of the legend says that Jesus’s head is supposedly be buried here. I guess legends change source to source, maybe that’s part of what makes them legends 😉 Either way, the parcel of land has been named this since before 1530!
One of the (many) attractions of the park is a section of botanical gardens. There are several very old greenhouses full of plants, and of course I explored them.
The parc was full of people jogging, lounging, exploring. Many were locals, though I could tell some were tourists like myself. It seems a popular place – the largest parc in Lyon, and apparently today was pretty sunny compared to the last few days. Everyone was out!
The greenhouses created some almost sci-fi shapes, which I enjoyed photographing.
While next to the one on the left, I also snapped a selfie in the reflection of the glass 🙂
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One of the coolest greenhouses had carnivorous plants! Not a lot of Venus Flytraps, but a TON of other types. I was really into carnivorous plants for a while, so I recognized a lot of these.
Sundews like these have long slender leaves with little hairs on them. Each hair has a glob of sweet, sticky sap to attract and trap insects. Once trapped, the leaf slowly curls around the insect to digest it.
When I had sundews, they tried to flower often! The flower must rise far above the plant, so as not to eat the pollinators 😛
Pitcher plants like this rely on their deep “pitchers” to catch prey and slowly digest them. The pitchers evolved to make it difficult to escape the slippery walls once an unwitting bug falls in.
There are SO many different species, and this greenhouse had a lot!
The pitcher plants took up most of this greenhouse, and their flowers were beautiful!
Butterworts like these look harmless enough, but their wide flat leaves are like flypaper – sticky, sweet smelling, and hard to escape once landed on! They also tend to have pretty flowers.
A few more pictures from the greenhouse:
The parc also had a free zoo! I didn’t walk through the zoo, but I did see a couple of zoo animals and a number of resident parc animals.
Duckling for JoshOLYMPUS C5050
As I continued to wander the parc, I discovered a large lake (well, I knew about it from Google Maps) in the middle of the parc. This is where I found most of the geese in the gallery above – but as I walked, I heard piano music and singing drifting across the lake (Zombie, by the Cranberries). I made my way around (eventually) and found a public piano with a crowd of people gathered around.
I took a video – but be warned, this is a digital camera from 2003 – video technology on consumer digital cameras was . . . not great. The sound is fine, but it is actually 240P quality.
Sometimes when I’m walking around a new area taking photos, I see things that I like more for the texture or color than the photo itself. Here’s a collection of these types of photos:
Besides the main attractions, the park was also filled with various little structures – benches, wells, grounds houses, and more.
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There was even a mini train around part of the parc!
I did not have time to explore the whole parc – by 5PM, I was able to check in to my AirBNB (I wanted a break from 16-person rooms), and I’d been walking since 11AM!
A few more photos from the parc and my walk to the AirBNB.
After resting and unpacking, I went back out for dinner (Tacos – but totally different than in the US, more like burritos with kebab/gyro filling) and went to a parc with a view over the city for sunset.
Sorry Katerina and Felix, no mopeds in this post. This was before you sent me Moped money! Mopeds are way less common in Lyon than they were in Barcelona, but I’m sure I’ll find one to rent before the 19th. I did try the rental bikes in Lyon though, and they seem to be the fastest way for short distances (besides a car, if you can find parking, maybe).
That’s all for now! Posts for 4/12 to come 🙂 I may not make a post for today, if there isn’t much to see – after the train, I plan to be lazy in my Airbnb in Lille for the rest of the day and go to bed early.
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