Archive for category Animals
July 21, 2010 – Bee and Daisy
Posted by Dave in Animals, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on July 21, 2010
Bee and Daisy
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1611
So I always seem to gravitate towards posting some kind of macro shot, either of a bug or a flower (or, well, both..) on Fridays. Not exactly sure why I feel that way (that’s a total lie, I know exactly why, I just don’t feel like sharing), but it’s the truth. And, I know, this isn’t Friday, it’s Wednesday. But it might as well be Friday, because I’ll be out of town the next couple days, and thus I won’t be posting anything. Which means that you get to look at this little guy for the rest of the weekend.
This is the first picture I’ve posted (and among the first I took) with my new (to me) Tamron 90mm macro. So far, I’d say I’m reasonably happy with it. I had some decent results, but I also had some that were less than stellar. I’m not going to blame the lens for those just yet though, and to be fair I’ve only taken the lens out on a couple walks around the neighborhood, and it’s definitely shown some promise. Hopefully you’ll all get to see some more pics from it in the coming weeks and months and years (I know, bold statement, given that I’ve only been doing this blog for just over a year now.)
Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. 1/250s, f/10.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 90mm (duh!).
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July 9, 2010 – Crazy Bug
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on July 9, 2010
Insect
Friday, July 9, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1608
I realized earlier today that it’s been a little while since I’ve posted a crazy macro bug shot. So here you go. I’ve got a fair number of bug shots that I just haven’t for whatever reason put online anywhere yet, so I had to dig this one up in order to post it today. I took this one earlier this spring, when I went on a little field trip to one of the parks here in Seattle (Carkeek Park, for those that know the area), because I was sick of the lack of bugs in my neighborhood. (Crazy, right? That I’d be complaining about there *not being enough* bugs. Weird.) I was using my recently-acquired macro ring flash, and two extension tubes with my Canon 50mm prime. (I don’t know the exact lengths of the extension tubes, but it was the two longer tubes out of the set of 3. With the third one on there, the already tiny working distance was just too short to be of any use..)
It’s really not very hard to get cool bug shots if you’ve got the equipment (and the equipment is surprisingly affordable!), but it does require a lot of patience. Both looking for bugs to take pictures of, as well as not getting too frustrated when they inevitably fly away before you get set up. Also, getting the bugs in focus is a real pain in the ass.
Another issue that I had with this particular set up is what I just hinted at: the small working distance. In order to focus, the bugs are only an inch or two from the front of your lens. So depending on how skittish the bug is, it can be hard to get close enough without them flying away. Also, they move a lot (especially the crawling bugs), so it can be extremely frustrating. But, it’s fun, so it’s worth the perseverance. (Wow, spell check told me I spelled that last word wrong, and after correcting it, it’s totally spelled differently than I would have expected.) Ideally, it would be nice to have a macro set up that would get me a similar level of magnification (or even more!) with a longer working distance. That’s where 100mm and 180mm macro lenses come in to play. Also, my macro flash isn’t adjustable at all, it just fires at full strength every time. Which means that sometimes there’s just no way to NOT overexpose the picture, because I’m already at the smallest aperture my lens will go to, at the lowest ISO my camera will do. I suppose the options would be to either use a different lens (that can go smaller), to manually cover some of the flash, or to use a neutral density filter. Perhaps I’ll try those later.
Anyway, have a great weekend everyone!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens with Opteka macro extension tubes. 1/160s, f/20.0, ISO 100.
Popularity: 13%
June 18, 2010 – Emu
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on June 18, 2010
Emu
Friday, June 18, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=728
Hey everyone! A long time ago (back when my readership consisted of about 10 people (if you counted generously, and included my cat)), I asked what people’s thoughts would be about moving to a 3-post-per-week format, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The response at that time was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the 5-per-week rhythm (2 out of 2 responses is 100%, right?). But, based on this week’s performance it looks like I’m subconsciously moving in that direction. I’d like to think that next week will be back to normal, but hey, the ice is broken now, right? We’ll see how it goes. 
Before I go any further, I’d like to point out that today I have made it significantly easier to subscribe to the blog to get regular updates. At the bottom of every post (including this one!) there are links to either subscribe to the RSS feed or to receive all of the posts via email. (The email option is brand new, but the RSS feed has actually been around since day 1, but until now it was fairly difficult to find…) So, if you’re currently relying on memory alone to remind you each day to check for a new bite of delicious content, now you no longer have to! Wow! Just go meandering on down to just below the Notes, and click away!
So, about this picture. This is an emu. That’s… uhh… about all I’ve got. See you next week!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm lens. 1/125s, f/6.3, ISO 400. Focal length: 218mm.
Popularity: 16%
June 11, 2010 – That’s Not Pollen
Posted by Dave in Animals, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on June 11, 2010
Tiny Red Spiders
Friday, June 11, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1558
When I decided that it would be worth my while to crouch on my knees all the way down there on the ground to take this picture, I thought I was looking at a tiny white flower with little bits of red pollen on it. It wasn’t until I actually looked through the lens that I realized that the little red bits of pollen were MOVING. That was pretty creepy. Then, it wasn’t until even later than that, when I was looking at the images on the big screen back at home, that I realized that those aren’t little red insects, they’re actually little red SPIDERS. I mean, wow, that’s straight up freaky right there.
Just thought I’d share…
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens with Opteka macro extension tubes. 1/160s, f/18.0, ISO 100.
Popularity: 34%
May 27, 2010 – Tortoise
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on May 27, 2010
Tortoise
Thursday, May 27, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1216
I’m not sure exactly how I feel about pictures like this. I mean, don’t get me wrong, animal pictures are cool and everything. But when you take them at the zoo across the street, they just feel.. somehow less authentic. Like, if you take a picture of some bird that’s in a cage, and then go around saying how awesome you are for getting a picture of that bird, it kind of discounts all the effort *real* bird photographers spend trying to get pictures of birds that are actually outside in the wild. (And believe me, those guys (and girls) don’t eff around. My understanding is that it’s an all-day ordeal tracking those suckers down. And you need some wicked telephoto lenses and such. Once you know even a little bit about those folks do to satisfy their particular obsession, it makes pictures of birds quite a bit more impressive. In my opinion anyway.
Anyway, whatever. It’s a tortoise. And it was a few feet away from me. Because I was at the zoo, standing right next to a couple children who thought I looked funny taking a picture of a tortoise.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/25s, f/6.3, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 21%
May 19, 2010 – Fly
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on May 19, 2010
Fly
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1542
And there it is.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 50mm f/1.8 with Opteka macro expansion tubes and Phoenix ring flash. 1/160s, f/18.0, ISO 100.
Popularity: 34%
May 7, 2010 – Hello, Friend
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on May 7, 2010
Hello, friend
Friday, May 7, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1561
Hello again everyone. I’m still under the weather, so I’ll keep this short again. But, here’s another image that came out of my new macro toys, the extension tubes and macro ring flash. It’s a fly! I’ve been using two of the tubes in combination with my 50mm prime lens, and it’s been working fairly well. The downside is that you have to be REALLY REALLY close to the subject to get it in focus. As in, less than 2 centimeters away. It’s really hard to get that close without scaring things away. What I really need is a true macro lens (so that I don’t need the tubes, or don’t need as many tubes), or maybe even longer macro lens (like a 90 or 100mm macro lens, or Canon and Tamron both make a 180mm 1:1 macro), that would give me more of a working distance. One day, one day. Until then, this will do, for sure.
In other news… I fooled around a bit last night and got the Facebook like button working on my pages. There are a zillion different Wordpress plugins to do it, but surprisingly, NONE OF THEM EFFING WORK. They’re all busted in the same ways – granted the root cause is probably a bug on Facebook’s side, but STILL. I ended up just hacking up one of the plugins to use the newest version of Facebook’s APIs, and that did the trick.
Why would you want to use the button? Well, I’ll tell you why. It helps me out, you see. When you click like, it’ll show up in your news feed on Facebook, and then all of your Facebook friends will see it, and then all the cool ones will click through to check it out, and they’ll get hooked just like you did. Brilliant! I know, I know, lots of you are all freaked out about the Facebook privacy concerns and stuff, so all you guys can feel free to not click the button. Don’t worry though, I don’t get your login information, nothing like that. I don’t even get to see the names of the people that click like unless you’re already my friend on Facebook. It’s all cool.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens with Opteka macro extension tubes and Phoenix macro ring flash. 1/160s, f/20.0, ISO 100.
Popularity: 28%
April 27, 2010 – Bee and Lavender
Posted by Dave in Animals, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on April 27, 2010
Bee and Lavender
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1543
As promised, here’s a picture taken using my new macro tools that came in on Friday and Saturday. (To refresh your memory, I got a set of macro extension tubes, and a cheap macro flash.) I spent a little bit of time playing around with them over the weekend, and so far I’m pretty happy with the results. I’ve been using the setup almost exclusively with my 50mm prime lens so far, and it’s been working out fine.
It doesn’t seem like you can get in as close with this particular setup as you can with the reverse mounted lens, although that was sort of expected. (Although I wasn’t sure how dramatic of a difference it would be.) This picture was taken using 2 of the 3 tubes, so I could have added the third to get in closer, but it’s pretty unwieldy as-is with the flash attachment and everything on there, so getting close enough to the subject would be pretty challenging. (The tip of my lens was about an inch away from the bee as it was.) I need to try it out on different lenses though, to see how it reacts with each. (The longer your lens – not focal length, actual length – the less dramatic the effect. Makes sense, really, since if you’re 3 inches out from your sensor to start with, adding another 3 inches means you’re doubling it. If you start 12 inches out, adding 3 more is less than 30% of an increase..)
The flash is pretty awesome though. It of course takes a little bit of time to refresh, so my old strategy of just taking oodles and oodles of frames as I slowly swayed back and forth (to try to ensure that I got at least one in focus) needed to be adjusted somewhat. But, the benefit of being able to use a super-tiny aperture (f/18, even at ISO 100!) outweighed that. After shooting with the reverse-mount for awhile, having the extra depth of field is reeeeeally nice, and it has the added benefit of covering your butt if your focal point is a tiny bit off. It’s definitely a little bit unwieldy, especially when you mount it on a short lens. Having a longer lens (like a 100mm macro) that allows you a greater distance to your subject would be really handy for getting into corners and stuff. But, if you’re on a budget like me, this setup seems to be working out great so far. I’m sure this won’t be the last you’ll see of it.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, with Opteka macro extension tubes. 1/160s, f/18.0, ISO 100. Phoenix macro ring flash.
Popularity: 29%
April 22, 2010 – Iguana
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on April 22, 2010
Iguana, Woodland Park Zoo
Thursday, April 22, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1215
Another day when I don’t have time to do a “real” post, so instead I’m just tossing up a picture so you know I didn’t forget about you. It’s an iguana! From the zoo across the street! From the much-maligned Tamron 28-300 VC lens! This is a (rare) case where I’m not sure I could have gotten this shot without it, since this was a 1/40s handheld exposure. The image stabilization actually worked out for me this time, sweet.
I was HOPING I’d have a chance today to talk about the two newest toys I ordered for my camera earlier this week, but no. They’re both for macro stuff, so hopefully not only will you get a chance to read about them someday, you’ll also get to see the results of them somewhat soon. We’ll see. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to talk about them? At least one of them should be getting here tomorrow, so that’ll be cool. Okay, that’s all the time I’ve got for today..
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300mm VC lens. 1/40s, f/6.3, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 27%
January 29, 2010 – Baby Ostrich
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on January 29, 2010
Baby Ostrich
Friday, January 29, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=414
Awww, look at that, a baby ostrich. Sorry for the late post! Enjoy your weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length, 300mm.
Popularity: 28%
December 9, 2009 – Fly
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on December 9, 2009
Fly
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1111
I know, I know, a lot of you think pictures like this one are kind of disgusting. And let’s be honest, they kind of are. But they’re still really cool. And, you have to admit, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted one.
This was taken with the 18-55 mm kit lens that came with my Canon, reverse-mounted using one of these guys: http://bit.ly/hCi4n . It’s truly ridiculous how close-in you can get that way, and all you need is a cheesy little 13 dollar attachment. Unfortunately, since you’re attaching the lens to your camera backwards, you obviously don’t get the benefit of any of the electronic controls, which means the focus is totally manual (although focusing at that distance consists of simply rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet) and your aperture will be wide open. However, I don’t think shrinking the aperture would help you at all anyway, since there’s such a pitifully small amount of light reaching your sensor anyway.
As you can tell, the depth of field when taking pictures like this is quite literally microscopic. In normal landscape photography, you can take a photo with everything from 15 feet in front of you out to infinity all in focus. Here? The only thing in focus is a very narrow band between the fly’s back and the front of his head. We’re talking maybe a millimeter here. It’s weird. Another odd thing about doing this kind of stuff is how close you have to get to your subject. This fly was literally less than an inch from the front (well, the back) of my lens. As you can imagine, this introduces a whole host of new issues. Such as: flies tend to be a bit skittish. So it can be hard to get close enough to even get a picture. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m not good at standing perfectly still. I tend to rock back and forth a bit. When I’m taking a picture of a mountain, an inch or two in either direction doesn’t really make a difference. But when your depth of field is a millimeter, it’s a bit different. And, even on top of that, it’s worth pointing out that flies are FAST. They move a LOT. So while normally the biggest concern is using a fast enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake, with these shots you need to get much, much faster than that, so that you don’t get motion blur. (1/400th of a second is a great place to start.) So to say getting this picture was a bit frustrating a bit of an understatement. Let’s just say, it’s a good think I was shooting digital, because I had a couple hundred frames of complete garbage. (Not an exaggeration.)
One thing I like about these shots, and this one in particular, is that they’re very illustrative of what happens when you move away from the focal point. The eye is fantastic, because you can see what it looks like in focus, and you can very clearly see how it degrades from that into the general out of focus mushy stuff. Fun times, all around.
Before I let you go today, I’d like to point something out real quick. If you see that bit.ly link above ( http://bit.ly/hCi4n ), that’s a link to Amazon, to the actual reverse-mount attachment I use. If you use that link to go to Amazon, then buy ANYTHING on the site, it’s linked up to my referral account, so I get 4% of your purchase paid to me. So I would urge you, if you’re going to do any Amazon shopping this holiday season, to please go to Amazon via that link, help me out a bit. If you buy enough stuff, I’ll send you a free calendar!! What could be better than that?! Oh, a lot of stuff, you’re right. But it’s still pretty awesome!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/400s, ISO 800.
Popularity: 17%
October 6, 2009 – Emu
Posted by Dave in Animals, Picture of the Day on October 6, 2009
Emu
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1126
Hello everyone. As promised, here’s an animal picture. I went with an emu, because they’re funny looking. I love the intense stare with the totally disheveled “hair”. Everything about this guy just screams out “awkwaaaaaaard!” What a ridiculous little animal.
This one was taken at the Cougar Mountain Zoo, out in Issaquah. (That’s a suburb of Seattle, for those of you who don’t live out here.) It’s MUCH smaller than the “main” zoo, that being the one in Woodland Park in Seattle proper. But it’s a ton of fun in its own right. Especially if you have kids. They don’t have anything super exotic (they have a couple llamas and a deer though), but you can get right up face to face with the animals (well, most of them. Not the cougars though), and feed them and touch them and make fun of them all you want. For a child who thinks the family cat is just the greatest thing ever, it’s a magical place. There’s no crowds (at least the two times I’ve been there), and parking is super easy. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon. Highly, highly recommended.
Following last Friday’s requests (in order received), tomorrow will be something from Colorado. There’s two I’m deciding between, we’ll see what I end up with.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Tamron 28-300 mm VC lens. 1/30s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 184mm.
Popularity: 17%