I’m Baaaak!

So where the heck have I been? Lost in the wilds of South Delta? Nope. Abducted by aliens? Nope again. Kidnapped and seduced by Zoot, Dingo and the maidens of Castle Anthrax? Sadly, no.

Life just got really busy for a while. I have a demanding job, a long daily commute, two little boys that expect (rightly) lots of daddy time, animals to take care of, yard work to do…you know the drill. Basically I have only a couple of hours every week to devote to personal interests like photography.
Then in September I decided it was time to deal with some of the chaos in the back storage room. I moved everything out and started building shelves. Then I used the new space to build a tiny shop area. Of course a shop needs to be full of tools, so I began a rather expended tool shopping binge. And of course, I started a number of woodworking projects. I have to admit it was a real pleasure to finally have a place to work with my hands and build things.

The next thing I knew I hadn’t picked up my camera or blogged for months. But my photography was always in the back of my mind. I knew I’d get back to it once the shop mania finally burned out.
Well, last week I needed to take some photos of walrus ivory carvings for a report I’m publishing. I pulled out my camera gear and was surprised by how good it felt to start shooting again.
And now spring is, well, springing! The cherry trees are in blossom, flowers are sprouting…and I have had to start mowing the grass. Pretty soon I’ll start seeing critters to photograph.

I can’t wait…

Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where them bugsies is?

Cheers,
EC

Video: the 2013 Vancouver zombie walk

Earlier this month I took my youngest son (six) to the 2013 Vancouver zombie walk. What is a zombie walk you might ask? Basically it’s an event that involves people dressing-up as zombies and going for a mob walk through a city. Planned zombie walks occur in many cities around the world. This was the ninth annual Vancouver zombie walk. There was a huge mob of easily a thousand or more people. Interestingly, I think the photographers may have outnumbered the zombies! It was great fun and yes, we were both dressed as zombies. I took my camera and tried to shoot video from the perspective of a six year old. The YouTube video linked to below below is the result. 

What do zombies and my six year old son have to do with macro photography or tiny wildlife? Well, nothing really. My son is small, but hardly macro sized. And zombies are creepy, but not creepy-crawlers. No, this could be considered a completely gratuitous opportunity for me to show off a “home movie”. 

On the other hand, I have been working to improve my videography techniques with the goal of eventually posting more and much better wildlife videos. My last video attempt (see Video: half-black bumble bees mating) was far better than my previous video postings. And today’s video is the best yet. It was also the most time consuming to shoot and edit. I learned a LOT about shooting and editing through making this video, and that will translate to improved critter videos in the future. 

One of the biggest challenges to shooting macro video is getting the lighting right and especially getting enough light to shoot at a low ISO with small enough aperture for decent depth of field. If you compare the stills on my Video: half-black bumble bees mating post to the video, the difference in both the quality of the light and the depth of field is striking. I clearly have a lot to learn. Working on this video about my son allowed me to relax and not worry so much about technical issues. I was able to just have fun and be creative. After all, I was with my son and we were both dressed as zombies, how could I not have fun? 

The other benefit of working on this video was that I shot a lot of footage, which gave me ample opportunity to experiment with editing. I feel much more prepared for my next macro video attempt. 

I have spent quite a bit of time on YouTube lately, mainly learning techniques for Adobe Premier Pro, the software I used to edit both this video and half-black bumble bees mating. It’s amazing what a resource YouTube has become! But old-school research has been just as important. Over the past month or so I have read four books on video and film making. Two were very helpful, the other two, not so much. The following are a few brief comments and recommendations about each book. 

First, two negative reviews: 

• Careers In Wildlife Film-making by Piers Warren, 2006. The blurb about this book on Chapters/Indigo states: “The essential book by Piers Warren, packed with guidance and advice for aspiring makers of natural history films…” I beg to differ. There is nothing essential about this book. It is a series of bios of people working in the wildlife film industry, each of which talks about what they do and how they got their start. It’s boring and, not very helpful. Worse, it is dated, having been written before YouTube and the use of DSLRs for video production. I found this book to be a waste of money. 
• Wildlife Film-making: Looking To The Future by Piers Warren, 2011. I made the mistake of buying this book along with Careers In Wildlife Film-making online. This volume is equally boring and unhelpful. Another waste of money. 

Now, two positive reviews: 

• The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media by Bruce Block, 2007. This is a serious book about visual structure of a video or film, and how to link story and visuals. I learned a tremendous amount from this book and now find myself watching films with a much greater appreciation of the art and skill of cinematography. It’s not a casual read, but I strongly recommend it. 
• How To Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck: Advice to Make Any Amateur Look Like a Pro by Steve Stockman, 2011. This book is hands-down the most useful reference I have found. It’s well written and fun to read. Best of all it is full of practical advice directed to the amateur videographer. I highly recommend it. 

OK, that’s enough of a preamble…I now present you with my latest video attempt, Charles goes on a zombie walk: 

I hope you enjoyed the video and would love to read any comments. I hope the book reviews were useful too. I’d appreciate any references to video production that you would like to recommend. 

Cheers
EC 

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 12-50mm micro four thirds zoom
Settings: shutter priority exposure (@ 1/50 sec shutter speed)
Lighting: Natural light
ISO: 200

Little green aphids…

Green aphid (Aphis pomi?) feeding by piercing the vein of a nasturtium leaf with its proboscis

 A week ago or so I was on Deas Island looking for bugs to photograph and I ended-up walking through a patch of Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius)—an all too common invasive species of plant. The plants were growing close together and I had to push through them. When I was through I discovered that I had picked-up numerous bright green aphids scattered around on my shirt (which luckily was a light colour). 

It occurred to me later that those aphids were just the right size to feed to the little Chinese mantids that I have been rearing (see Chinese mantis baby pictures). So I dutifully went back the next day to collect a couple dozen. At first I tried using a sweep net, but I ended up collecting too many other insects and spiders (along with bits of leaves and other detritus). On the other hand, walking back and forth through the broom worked extremely well: I would just crash through the plants, pick off the aphids, and repeat. It was really rather fun, although I’m sure it must have looked just a bit odd. 

The mantids eagerly ate the lion’s share of the aphids (mantids share actually). But I reserved a few to photograph. Although they were pretty big as far as aphids go, they were still tiny insects and much too small to photograph with my 60mm macro lens. So I used the El Nikkor enlarger lens and telescopic extension tube assembly that I described in this post: Maple syrup in the garden of good and weevils. 

I placed the aphids on a nasturtium leaf both as a suitable background, but also because I know from experience how (unfortunately) popular nasturtiums are with aphids. Sure enough, a couple of the insects settled down to feed by piercing the leaf with their proboscises. 

Green aphid (Aphis pomi?) on the underside of a nasturtium leaf

Depth of field at this magnification is extremely shallow, and I had trouble getting just the right angle to get the eyes and proboscis in focus. But I have to say, I am delighted with these images…especially the one at the top of the page. 

Cheers,
EC 

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Nikkor 50mm F2.8 enlarger lens
Settings: manual exposure (F8 @ 1/200 sec)
Lighting: Olympus FL-36 flash (Full power)
ISO: 200

Portrait of a yellow rabbit snail (Tylomelania zemis)

Yellow rabbit snail (Tylomelania zemis) native to Lake Poso in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Isn’t this a gorgeous animal? It’s a yellow rabbit snail (Tylomelania zemis)—one of three that I added to my aquarium this past weekend. These snails are native to Lake Poso in Sulawesi, Indonesia, although this is a captive bred specimen. It’s approximately 7.5 cm (3 inches) long including the shell.

Most of the aquarium photos I have posted on this blog have been taken with an Olympus E-620 camera, Zuiko 35mm macro lens and the pop-up on-camera flash. The on-camera flash was well positioned to light a small subject without creating reflections on the glass that showed in the final photo. Using the on-camera flash made it easy to grab the camera and take photos of whenever I saw one of the aquarium inhabitants doing something interesting. But when I went to photograph this rabbit snail with my new camera¹ I discovered that the flash² that came with it sits too low on the hot shoe to work for macro work. I ended-up using my ring flash³ to take these pictures. They turned-out nice, but the ring flash is a bit of a pain to use for aquarium photography because the positioning of the flash tube so close to the lens makes it difficult to avoid reflections of the flash on the glass.

My other flash options are both vintage: either a Vivitar 283 which is a little too big, or an Olympus T20 which is a nice size, but not versatile enough because you can’t adjust the manual output. Both of these flashes are more than 20 years old…I think maybe it’s time to invest in a new modern flash!

Anyhow, here are two more photos of the rabbit snail poking around in the aquarium gravel looking for something to eat. They are very slow moving funny creatures. It will be easy to get more nice pictures in the future, once I sort-out the flash issue.

Yellow rabbit snail (Tylomelania zemis) searching for food in the gravel

Yellow rabbit snail (Tylomelania zemis) searching for food in the gravel

Cheers,
EC

¹Olympus OM-D E-M5
²Olympus FL-LM2
³Olympus RF-11 ring flash

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F14 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Olympus RF-11 ring flash (1/2 power)
ISO: 200

White box photographs of a Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla): part II

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

My last post (see White box photographs of a Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) part I) featured classic white box photographs of a Pacific tree frog. By classic, I mean they featured the animal against a featureless white background. Once I was satisfied with those pictures I decided to take another series with the same soft lighting but with a more natural background. So I went out to the garden and brought in a pot of soil in which I have been cultivating a miniature garden of moss. The pot is meant as a hanging basket so it is wide and low—perfect as a backdrop for macro photography. All I had to do was put the pot inside the white box and place the frog in the pot. The rest of the set-up stayed the same.

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

This second series was much easier to take as the frog appeared more relaxed and secure nestled amongst the moss. And as you can see, the photos turned-out really nice and have a very different “mood” from the photos in my previous post. The white background of the first series really emphasized the bright colours of the frog while these new pictures (which I was tempted to subtitle “Green on Green”) seem to give the frog more personality. I find these photos to be “cuter”. Or maybe it’s just me…

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla) on moss

 In any case the combination of white box and pot of moss worked out really well. I’ll definitely use this combination more in the future.

Cheers,
EC

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 12-50mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 zoom
Settings: manual exposure (F11-16 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Vivitar 283 flash and VP-1 Vari-power adapter (1/16 power)
ISO: 200

My first attempt at video: western thatching ants in action!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that in late February I bought a new camera: an Olympus OM-D E-M5 (see I’m baaaack! (Part II)). I had a number of reasons for buying the camera, and one of them was that I really wanted to try my hand at video. My Olympus e-volt 620—the camera I have used to take most of the photos on this blog—is an absolutely great camera and I have been very happy with it. But it doesn’t record video.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Deas Island park (one of my favourite places to photograph insects) and took the opportunity to take some video of western thatching ants. I really didn’t have a plan, and to be honest, I wasn’t all that sure of what I was doing! But I shot a few minutes of video, came home and edited the footage using MS Movie Maker. Amazingly the whole process only took a couple of hours! Mind you, it’s amateurish and probably a bit silly—David Attenborough certainly has nothing to worry about—but it was fun to do. This little project really has me thinking about the possibilities…

Please check it out and don’t hesitate to comment. Any suggestions for improvement would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
EC

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 12-50mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 zoom
Settings: auto exposure (wide view: F8 @ 1/320 sec; close-up: F6.3 @ 1/100 sec)
Lighting: Ambient light
ISO: 200

I’m baaaack….Part III: fried bugs as a nutritious and tasty snack!

A very friendly Thai gentleman selling stir-fried insects outside the Chatuchak (weekend) market in Bangkok, Thailand

Hey! What’s this…another post so soon? It’s only been two days instead of a month! 

All self-sarcasm aside, I hope this foreshadows a return to regular postings for me. Hard to believe that once upon a time I was posting every day! These days I hardly ever get the time to take photos or play with bugs and worms and other wiggly things that most people consider icky—never mind actually writing about it. Between the arrival of spring (bringing the opportunity to go out and play with said icky things) and work (hopefully) quieting down, hopefully that will all change… 

I wrote in my last blog (see I’m baaaack….!Part II) that while I was in Bangkok I only had the time to take 28 photos (28 to be exact)—but I also wrote that those photos included a few images of insects. Well, here they are! 

As you can see from the accompanying photos, I saw a lot of insects in Bangkok. But they were almost all dead. Not just dead, they were fried! 

Here’s the story: on the one free afternoon I had while in Bangkok I took the skytrain out to the Chatuchak (weekend) market: the biggest weekend market in the world. This market is incredible: it is HUGE (according to Wikipedia it covers over 35 acres and contains more than 5,000 stalls); it’s CROWDED. It’s a vast labyrinth of stalls, tiny shops and carts selling absolutely everything. It’s chaotic, confusing and utterly fascinating. I spent a couple of hours going through the live animals and tropical fish area. Most of the animals I saw were the same species you might find in a pet shop in North America. There were some exceptions, however, such as the numerous pet squirrels (which appeared to be captive born). Happily most of the critters appeared to be legal and well taken care of—which perhaps wasn’t too surprising considering the largest global wildlife conservation meeting was taking place in the city at that time. I can’t help but wonder if things would be different if I visited now. Even with CITES CoP 16 happening I still saw a few examples of illegal wildlife trade, such as the one vendor who was selling wild caught fledgling hawks and owls. His set-up was clearly temporary and included a big sign saying that no photos were allowed… 

The most interesting vendor was a tiny store that sold only beetles, beetle larvae and the media and equipment to care for them. It was really cool (in more than one way as it was thankfully air conditioned). I know that beetle husbandry is a popular hobby in some countries, but not in Canada. Unfortunately the owner spoke no English—and I certainly don’t speak Thai—so I wasn’t able to ask any questions. 

Anyhow, the afternoon I was at the market the temperature was 35°C (95°F) and 100% humidity (or so it felt) and in the market there wasn’t a breath of air. After a couple hours I was absolutely dying—I desperately needed air conditioning, a shower and a gallon of water to drink. When I exited the market I came across this cheerful vendor who was selling a variety of fried insects. I wasn’t looking for a tasty snack, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to take a few photos. 

Fried caterpillars

Fried silk worm pupae (Bombyx mori)

 

Fried crickets

Another photo of fried giant water bugs–the idea of eating these critters was pretty intimidating as they were 7-10 cm (3-4 inches) long!

For those that don’t like to eat bugs, deep-fried fledgling birds were also available!

There isn’t much to say about my photo technique for these photos. I was too hot to want to think about it; I just set my camera to auto everything, took these snapshots and headed back to the hotel. 

I’m afraid that I can’t tell you how they tasted…maybe next time! 

Cheers,
EC 

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 12-50mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 zoom
Settings: auto exposure (wide view: F8 @ 1/320 sec; close-up: F6.3 @ 1/100 sec)
Lighting: Ambient light
ISO: 200

I’m baaaack….Part II (at last!)

My “travelling light” camera gear: (1): Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with Zuiko 12-50mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 zoom lens; (2): FL-LM2 accessory flash; (3): USB Cable; (4): hot shoe flash cable; (5): High Voltage protection Hot Shoe PC Adapter; (6): Pentax pocket/table tripod; (7): vintage Olympus T-20 flash

As I noted in my last blog, in late February I travelled to Bangkok to attend CITES CoP 16 (see I’m baaaack….!). While I was there I had every intention of working on my photography in my spare time. Sadly, I greatly underestimated how little free time I would have. More on that in a bit…

When it came to packing my camera equipment, I needed to travel very light. A CoP is a suit and tie kind of event and I needed to have enough clothes to see me through over two weeks of meetings. In the heat and humidity of Bangkok you go through at least one dress shirt per day. And of course you need casual clothes for the evenings—I’m not the kind of guy that wears a suit and tie any more than necessary! In addition to a lot of clothes I needed my laptop and power cord, Blackberry, toiletries, battery chargers…It was ridiculous; I packed less stuff for eight weeks on Safari in East Africa! Mind you, for some inexplicable reason, when I packed for Africa I only included three pairs of socks! But that’s another (and rather stinky) story…

Anyhow, as I was saying, I needed to organise some light and compact yet versatile camera gear for my trip. I knew I would have very little free time (rather an understatement as it turns out) so I left out any serious macro equipment. I figured that as long as I could get a decent photo of a medium sized insect, I’d be happy. I also wanted the option of using an off-camera flash so that if the opportunity arose I could improvise a simple white box like I did in Mexico last fall (see Improvised white box photography of a scarab beetle using photocopier paper). That meant a small flash and hot-shoe extension cable rather than my bulky ring flash or one of my Vivitar 283 flashes.

Above is a picture of the gear I finally put together. For a body I took a brand new Olympus OM-D E-M5 mirrorless Micro Four Thirds camera that I bought just before leaving for Bangkok. It’s a sweet piece of equipment but I had absolutely no time to play with it before I left—so I made sure to pack the instruction manual! For a lens I just went with the Zuiko 12-50mm kit lens that came with the camera. In 35mm terms (on the OM-D) it is the equivalent of a 24-100mm lens, and it has a macro feature that allows you to focus almost to 1:2 magnification. This camera and lens together make an amazingly versatile but SMALL package.

The OM-D comes with a FL-LM2 accessory flash that clips onto the camera hot shoe. That’s good enough for general snap-shots. For the off-camera flash I dug out a vintage Olympus T-20 flash I bought back in the 1980s. I only used this flash  a few times and it was still packed in its original box. I bought a suitable hot shoe flash cable to connect the T-20 to the camera and of course a high voltage protection hot shoe adapter to protect the camera from damage when using the older generation flash. I also added a small folding Pentax table tripod that I have had kicking around for decades (I honestly don’t remember where I got it). Last but not least I needed a USB cable to download photos to my laptop. This whole assemblage fit in two small bags which fit in turn into my carry-on backpack along with my laptop, book, glasses, etc. Theoretically this set-up was all I needed to do some nice close-up photography both in the field and in the “studio” (my hotel room).

Sadly, the key word is “theoretically”. In the 16 days I was in Bangkok, I only had the time to take fewer than 30 photos (28 to be exact), and none of them were “studio” shots. It’s really too bad that I wasn’t able to really test this collection of equipment. It’s not a bad compact set-up, so I’m going to organise some photo shoots this spring where I’ll limit myself to this gear to just to see if it works as well as I hoped. After all, I’ll definitely be travelling more for work in the future. Stay tuned for an update in the future.

As for those 28 photos I took in Bangkok…they did include a few images of insects—but they are a little bit different than my usual work. They’ll be the subject of my next post…

Cheers,
EC

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus E-620 digital SLR
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F14 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Olympus RF-11 ring flash (manual; 1/2 power)
ISO: 100

Baby (Brachypelma) got a brand new coat

These pictures are of a young Mexican red-kneed tarantula (Brachypelma smithi) that I bought quite some time ago. It was one of a number of critters that I talked about in this post: A scorpion, a white box and 15 minutes.

The spider is about three inches across. When I first got it its colours were drab and some of the urticating hairs on its abdomen were rubbed-off (urticating hairs are irritating bristles that can be kicked off by the tarantula as a defence). I didn’t want to photograph the little beast until it moulted and had a nice bright new and complete skin.

Young Mexican red-kneed tarantula and shed skin shortly after moulting

As I said, I bought this spider to photograph, but it is also an interesting critter. I chose this particular species for several reasons: they are easy to keep in captivity; they are very pretty, and they are docile. Some tarantulas can be very fast, aggressive and/or nervous. I do a lot of my photography on the kitchen table and didn’t want something that would take off and disappear under the fridge the moment I picked-up my camera! Besides, since buying this spider we added two young cats to the household—they would love a young tarantula to play with. Mind you, the cats may have solved the other problem: they keep chasing their toys under the fridge. There might not be room for a tarantula under there anymore.

But I digress…

I photographed the tarantula in the same white box that I have used to take so many of the photos I have posted here (see: How to: white box photography of Macleay’s spectre stick insects). The odd thing is that I wanted a docile spider, but this one is almost too calm! I put it in the white box and it just sat there. It was certainly easy to photograph, but I had to encourage it to change positions. In fact the only time I ever see this spider move quickly is when it is after prey (kind of like me, I rarely move too fast unless there is food involved). Maybe next time I photograph this tarantula I’ll offer it a cricket…

Cheers,
EC

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus E-620 digital SLR
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F14 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: on-camera flash (full power)
ISO: 100

White box photography of tobacco hornworms (Manduca sexta): Part 3

Macro portrait of a tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) photographed using a white box with a green foam core background

This will be my last post about tobacco hornworms for a while, I promise! 

My last blog (White box photography of tobacco hornworms (Manduca sexta): Part 2) featured photos of these caterpillars taken with a green background in an attempt to produce a more natural looking image. The focus of that post was a discussion of the different steps I took using Photoshop Elements to alter and improve the background of the photos. But as you can see from the images above and below, not all of the pictures I took during that shoot needed to have the background edited. Higher magnification photos (taken closer to the subject) threw the background more out of focus so that the texture of the green foam core was not visible (this was the problem I noted in my last post). Clearly this technique works very well—producing nicely lit pictures that have a nice smooth green and somewhat more natural look. The stick helps to reinforce the natural appearance 

The “horn” of a a tobacco hornworm photographed using a white box with a green foam core background

I tried one more technique: I placed a dead leaf from the garden on the floor of the white box and took more photos of the caterpillar as it crawled around on the leaf. This is a very common way to photograph a tiny animal with a natural background. Examples of the results are shown below. 

To be honest, I like these last images the best of all. I really like the obviously natural background provided by the leaf. Mind you, I probably have a bias toward these shots as I have used this technique so much in the past. 

The bottom line is that with very little effort, and a little creativity, a white box can be used to produce very nice photos of small critters with a pure white, coloured, or natural background. I expect to be using the white box for a lot of my photography in the coming months as I wait for the spring and the opportunity to take my camera equipment back out into the field. 

Cheers,
EC 

The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus E-620 digital SLR
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F16 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Vivitar 283 flash and VP-1 Vari-power adapter (1/8 power)
ISO: 100