Great weather for photographs.

The weather is warming up, although the nights are still very cool.  With warmer days, there's plenty more critters around, and the flowers are amazing.  Because of the long wet, cool winter the garden is ablaze with colour, and the flowers are lasting longer because of the cool nights.  Today I got some images of an Australian Admiral Butterfly, and I've never seen one of these in the garden before.  It was feeding on the Diosma, which is so covered in flowers you can hardly see the leaves.  Only one allowed on Blip of course, so here are the best of the rest.

Yesterday I took some images of a paper wasp - risked life and limb I may add, but escaped without being stung.  I posted the best on Blip, and the only reason I am posting another one here is because the wings look great in this one.  You can also see why fashion refers to a wasp waist.  Anyway I destroyed the nest, which was only 3 cells at this point, and I've been checking throughout today, and the wasps haven't come back.

And finally, another one from the front garden - just to sweeten things up a little.

Belair National Park

I was up at the Park again yesterday, photo opportunities like you wouldn't believe.  Even a slightly grumpy koala bear.  But the bird images were the best.  Here's is the Blip I chose. We only get 2 of the 8 varieties of Rosella in SA, and this is one of them, and I think the most elegant.  I didn't bother to do too much in the way of flowers, because you really have to hike down the trails to get to the best ones.  Anyway here are a few images that didn't get Blipped, starting off with the koala, followed by a terrific raven shot, and a coot, and another Noisy Miner.  I chose the coot because his feet fascinate me.  And the raven, he's saying, Don't you point that thing at me!!

This is for Wayne

I think Wayne was a bit disappointed today when he realised that the wouldn't be home in time to see the tulips.  The yellow ones (home of the flower spider) are just about finished now.  Talking about the flower spider, I got quite a good image of him a couple of days ago, which didn't make the cut for Blip, and boy has he put on weight.  I reckon he's three times the size he was when I first blipped him.  I actually saw him stalk and catch a fly the other day.  The fly was easily twice his size but he didn't hesitate.  It was all over in a nano-second  I got a couple of images but they're not good enough to be shown here or anywhere else. This one I took yesterday isn't too bad though.

The front garden is really a show stopper right now.  I see people stop and look at it all the time.  It's a riot of colour as you will see.

And finally, here's a tulip image - it's the edge of a white fringed tulip.  The tulip looks like it was shot in black and white, but it's not.  It's a colour shot, that happens to be black and white.  You wouldn't know what it was unless I told you. Oh, and a cherry blossom - this is taken closeup with the wide angle lens.

Magpies and Flowers

As always more images than I can Blip - the best blip is here.  The one I most wanted to post was the innards of a tulip, but I just couldn't get it right somehow. Perhaps it was depth of field, or maybe the colours were just too dark and light.  I might have another go tomorrow, but make it more arty than just as is. We'll see.  It was lovely to see the sun today, but there's still heavy dark clouds around.

Bad Blip Day

I must have taken at least 200 images today, none of which were any good.  Bad focus, bad lens choice, bad ISO, bad F stop, you name it, it was bad.  I've been trying to learn about depth of field, and I can't seem to get it right.  It turned out good in the end - I just calmed down, got a few good shots of skinks, bless their hearts.  My best skink shot is in Blip (of course), but here's another one I liked.

I also got a good bee shot, plus a few general ones of the garden, primarily for Wayne who's overseas right now, and is missing the best of the flowers.  I still have to get the definitive bee shot though, and that's I want to get better depth of field, so I can get more in focus.  Of course all these images are better large.

And finally here's a couple of the front garden.  The flowers in the centre are all leaning away from the oak tree to get more sun.

Wide Angle Closeups

 Wide Angle Closeups - not quite what you would expect, is it?  I was reading a book today, recommended by a fellow Blipper, called Understanding Closeup Photography by Brian Peterson.  This is one seriously good book - very easy to read, and very hard to put down.

In one chapter he suggests going closeup with a wide angle lens.  It sounded really strange to me, so I got out our widest lens  (16-35 mm) and went out into the late afternoon sum to capture the images you will see underneath.  It is an absolute revelation, and gives a whole new meaning to closeup photography.

As the author says, it is very good at giving a sense of place.  And the images are as sharp as they possibly can be.  I especially like my magpie against the sky and the trees in the background.  I love macro, but this is a completely different take on closeup work.  The blossom is our flowering cherry tree, in full bloom.

Little Miss Muffet got frightened

Yesterday I posted a macro of a huntsman spider on Blipfoto.  Scary stuff, but amazing detail; I had no idea that a spider's face looked like that.  I had a couple of other shots.  One shows his breadth - he's about 6cm wide from leg tip to leg tip, and the other shows a bit of a scar on his head - he must have been in the wars at some point.  He was put outside after the photo session. Just to show how patient he was, I actually went back to photograph him 3 times before I was satisfied.  He didn't move a millimeter during all of that time.

I'm doing this for the photos

I need a place to post more of my photos.  Some days I take so many, and I can only post one per day on Blipfoto.  For example, I was in Belair National Park the other day, and posted a photo of a sundew.  The problem was that I had dozens more images I could have posted.  This one is called, rather appropriately, the Common Donkey Orchid.  I'll most likely go back and try and get a better image than this one.  Or maybe two in the one shot.  I love to do macro work, and that really is my main focus.