Dave Wilson Photography » Macro

Owl Butterfly, Houston Museum of Natural Science

Dave Wilson — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:49:55 +0000

If you follow me on Twitter or Google+ you may be aware that my laptop has been infected by a nasty little virus that's redirecting all my Google searches to a bogus site. I've no idea what else it's doing so, until I get rid of it (which is proving tricky since none of the tools I've tried so far can see it), photo production is going to be somewhat curtailed - sorry.

For today, therefore, here's an image I had queued up for "emergency use'. It shows an Owl Butterfly at the wonderful Cockerell Butterfly Exhibit in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Lighting was courtesy of my Nikon R1C1 Macro flash.

Owl Butterfly, Houston Museum of Natural Sciences

Dave Wilson — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:07:42 +0000

This is the last of the holiday pictures for now (until I do a second-pass edit). On our way to pick up the ship in Galveston, we stopped for a day in Houston to visit the museums. One of my favourite is the Houston Museum of Natural Science which is home to a superb butterfly exhibit. I spent 90 minutes or so in the hot and sticky rain-forest-like dome that houses the butterflies and got to play with my new Nikon R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Flash kit.

This image shows an Owl Butterfly resting on a tree.

Coneflower Seed Head

Dave Wilson — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 05:19:01 +0000

With the weather warming up nicely and seeing that March is only a couple of days away, I'm beginning to have thoughts about shooting wildflowers again. I say "again" but, honestly, I've missed the best opportunities most years since I've been here since March always seems to be such a busy month. This year is looking equally busy but perhaps I'll be able to carve out a Saturday to head into the Hill Country and catch some of the flowers before they end up looking like this Purple Coneflower.

Standing Out From The Crowd

Dave Wilson — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:05:51 +0000

I spent some time this afternoon shooting macros around our home. With all the rain we've had, there are large numbers of wildflowers blooming just now including clumps of these tiny (half inch?) daisies.

I would normally strive to keep as much of the flower in focus as possible and I did shoot quite a few at smaller apertures that do this. In editing, however, I preferred the images I shot with shallower depth of field. I think the overall softness complements the delicacy of the flower.

Striped Bark Scorpion, Texas

Dave Wilson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:44:17 +0000

We have loads of these nasty little critters living around us. Most of the time they are outside but quite frequently we find them in the house. Thankfully, most of the time we find them by means other than being stung. If you’ve not been stung by a scorpion, consider yourself lucky since it is not one of life’s more pleasant experiences.

This particular shot was taken while I was doing yard work one weekend. On moving a piece of wood, I discovered that I had disturbed this guy during breakfast. I dashed for the camera, stuck the Tamron 90mm macro on it, set up a single off-camera flash and got a couple of decent shots before the scorpion headed off. It left before I had a decent lighting setup done so the shadows are a bit nasty here but I’ll live with that over the alternative of not getting the shot at all.

Seed Heads, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Dave Wilson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:49:16 +0000

I admit - I cheated on this one. The backlight was actually an SB-600 flash firing off camera and pointing back towards me through the seed heads. Regardless, it still looks cool so please don't tell anyone.

Compound Eyes

Dave Wilson — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:49:01 +0000

I spent some more time with the Blue Dashers (Pachydiplax longipennis) at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center this afternoon. This time, I stuck an extra 12mm of extension on my setup and tried to get as close as possible to the dragonflies. This definitely made a difference though my maximum magnification was limited by the fact that this guy was perching about 3 feet away over the pond and I couldn't get closer without getting wet. To be perfectly honest, I've cheated with this image since it's a pretty extreme crop. I guess that's OK for the blog, though, since I only show 700 pixel images here (note that this one isn't for sale as a print).

Purple Coneflower

Dave Wilson — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:36:41 +0000

For this shot, taken using a Tamron 90mm macro lens, I decided to go in rather closer than usual on a Purple Coneflower at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center here in Austin. The orange and red spikes radiating from a green center make a rather striking display.

Roseate Skimmer Dragonfly, Austin, Texas

Dave Wilson — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:36:31 +0000

Yesterday morning we saw one of our annual nature marvels taking place. Thousands of dragonflies were migrating south past our house for most of the morning. Today there are a few but nothing like the huge number we saw yesterday morning.

The migration is apparently triggered by the passage of a cold front but, as far as I could tell, we didn't see any cool air yesterday - the temperature topped out at 105F according to my car thermometer. Regardless, something told the dragonflies that it was time to head for warmer climes (!).

While the insects are migrating, getting good pictures is not easy since they are rather more interested in flying than setting down on a handy branch. As a result, this picture is actually a few weeks old. It was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center where they have a couple of ponds that are generally a good place to find dragonflies.

This Roseate Skimmer was a lot trickier to photograph than the Blue Dashers whose pictures I have posted before. This is a larger insect but significantly more skittish so getting close enough to get a shot like this proved difficult. Once again, though, the trusty 70-300mm VR lens with 56mm of extension tubes did the job, letting me get this image from about 18-24 inches away from the dragonfly.

Coreopsis

Dave Wilson — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:52:35 +0000

Coreopsis are probably my favourite Texas wildflowers. The splash of red they provide really brightens up roadsides in spring. This image was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last weekend and I was quite surprised to find them still blooming given how late in the summer it is and also how little rain we have had this year.