Giant Moths Up Close

In the cool, calm morning air this beautiful Antheraea polyphemus moth stayed still for quite some time on the exfoliated bark of a Crape myrtle tree.

The moth was shot using a 20mm Kenko extension tube with a 70-200mm zoom. With the tube you loose the ability to focus at any normal distance so it's not nearly as versatile as a dedicated macro lens. The tubes are hollow, no glass, but do include electrical connections for the lens to talk to the camera body. No glass means no degradation of the lens optics. There is a reduction of light reaching the sensor and stacking tubes lowers the light further while increasing the enlargement. For manually focused shots from a tripod the light loss is easy to live with.

Another option for using an existing lens for macro photography would be to add a close-up filter to the front of the lens. There's no light loss with the filter. There can be softening of the image using modestly priced filters. The filters can also be stacked for greater enlargement and, like the tubes, you are limited to close-up focusing. For the greatest flexibility a dedicated macro lens like the 180mm macro is an ideal choice. Here's another early morning moth, a luna moth, shot with the same setup. -pw

Current blog photo... Custom Glass Mosaic

My blog's current header photo features a blossom from our Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' floating over a custom art glass mosaic my wonderful wife Renee created as a gift to my mother. The three Koi symbolize mom's three children. Small pebbles were incorporated to represent pieces of fish food floating on the surface at the center of the water ripples. The mosaic was done in the curved basin of a bird bath. -pw

RAW Developer 1.9 released

I've been pushing Mac users to try Iridient Digital's RAW Developer app for quite some time. They have been fast to add compatibility for new cameras and DNG has been well supported. It's incredibly good at what it does, getting natural, detailed conversions out of camera RAW files. Now version 1.9 runs as 64 bit with rendering speed improvements. Otherwise everything looks and seems to work the same on the surface.

With the feature set unchanged for so long I was hoping to be more excited when RAW Developer reached 1.9. Yes it's much faster. Still, Adobe's CS5 converter pans and renders to Photoshop slightly faster than the 1.9 RD. This is only a quick first impression looking at a few 20D files that should be easy lifting on a 27" iMac. The RD version history says higher processor core counts mean better performance with 1.9. RD pulls out better micro contrast detail but it lacks some seriously powerful non-destructive RAW tools in Adobe's converter that I am appreciating more and more. Adobe's lens distortion tools, adjustment brush, spot removal tool (super valuable) and vignetting tool are all missing counter parts in RD. That sounds like I'm advocating feature bloat. RAW Developer is a basic converter by design. Sure you can open in Photoshop to do these things later. That was my old workflow for years.

I'd still highly recommend RAW Developer when the finest detail matters. The price is far more attractive than Photoshop. The RAW Developer tool set seems to have stagnated. Maybe now that the code is 64 bit and the rendering speed is on par, Iridient Digital will advance the features or innovate. -pw
RAW Developer demo (link) 
my past coverage of RAW Developer (link) 

Spring blooms in February

Our redbud trees and loropetalum shrubs are bursting with pink color. The wild plum trees near the studio are smothered with clouds of white blooms. Even our Japanese Magnolia, which is always late to bloom, is starting to put on a show. The azaleas, spirea, dogwoods, fringe trees and native thorny haw trees are still waiting to see if winter is over. Our last frost date is typically mid March. With this early warm weather persisting the pawpaw flowers might start blooming before April. The small scrubby pawpaw plants seem to appear out of nowhere with unusual droopy blooms. Quite similar to an upside down Japanese magnolia bloom. Of all of the native flowers I tend to, I'm drawn to photograph the pawpaws the most. Each year a different pawpaw near the studio puts on the best show. Most are creamy white, a couple have burgundy blooms. Every shot feels like I'm seeing them in a new way. Here are a couple magnolia blooms from yesterday.  -pw
Ant climbing Japanese magnolia to watch sunset (link)
Japanese magnolia from above (link) 

Last days of the winter vegetable garden

No Photoshop tricks needed to make a winter garden harvest look yummy. Fresh from the garden to the dinner table. Last week the temperatures dropped to freezing but the garden was spared. A huge sheet of plastic left over from the 2004 hurricane season came to the rescue to make a quick greenhouse over the fence posts of our small veggie garden. The plastic came off in anticipation of a rain shower and warmer nights. I clipped a big bowl of greens after the shower Sunday but the high winds will mean the garden is unprotected for the cold night. The plastic tent should be back up this evening in time for more freezing nights. We'll enjoy it while we can! I'm looking forward to shooting through the plastic again. There were some interesting patterns from the remnants of the dried morning glory vines and chicken wire.  -pw

High Key photography - a memory of summer

Glowing Sunflower

As our small spring veggie garden faded in the Florida summer heat, a row of tall light yellow sunflowers began to put on a show at the back of the garden. To add to the display we also planted Heavenly Blue morning glories along the wire rabbit fence to add foliage and flowers below the sunflowers. Just as the sunflowers began to bloom the morning glories hit their stride and grew fast, wrapping around the sunflower stems and blooms. So much for most of my sunflower photography plans. I could have trimmed the vines back but I was too curious to see what would happen. It wasn’t pretty but the cardinals enjoyed it... Next year I’ll keep the vines in check for a bit to enjoy the sunflowers longer. I did manage to get a few individual shots. Here’s one of a sunflower converted to black and white. It’s my favorite high key photo from this year’s shots.

The winter garden got it’s first taste of rain water yesterday after over a month of drought. Where did all of the weeds come from over night? I can't wait for some garden fresh broccoli!  -pw