Photographs by Frank

18 August 2013

Experiments in Video

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Yesterday evening a feeding swarm of dragonflies (large darners) formed in our yard. This is a regular late summer happening. Usually I simply watch in awe when this happens as there is no way to capture this spectacle with still photography.

There were literally hundreds of five or six inch dragonflies flying about, seemingly at random, preying on insects too small for me to see. (Hopefully some were the mosquitoes that eventually found me while I was making these videos!)

Remembering that my little Nikon 1 V1 could do video (including slow motion), I set the camera up on a tripod and experimented with video.

This unedited clip is in real time:

Here is an unedited clip in slow motion (5 seconds of real time):

One more edited clip in slow motion (about 2.5 seconds of real time):

None of the dragonflies are in focus… I am not sure how one could get them in focus as they are moving very fast and randomly. I hope that one gets a sense of this interesting behavior anyway. However, it is no substitute for seeing it live.

I think that I will stick to photography in the main!

17 August 2013

Experiments in Optics

Filed under: Garden Flowers,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

I recently acquired a bunch of lenses from old enlargers… both enlarging lenses and condenser lenses. One of the largest lens in the collection is a 5″ in diameter condensing lens that is mounted in a metal frame. It is probably from a 4″x5″ enlarger. Today, I decided to “play” with this lens in conjunction with a digital camera.

Here are the first results…

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The last photo in this set shows the set up. I mounted the condensing lens on a tripod, added a cardboard lens hood (which you can’t see in this photo) and a dark cloth. Both the hood and the cloth are attached to the lens with masking tape. The first couple of images I tried were low in contrast and had lens flares. Thus, I added the lens hood.

To use this set up, I placed myself and the digital camera under the dark cloth and made photos of the lens.

Clearly the middle of the circular frame is the sharpest, but it will never be “tack sharp”, and that the images goes soft and distorted towards the edges. All of which is really the point in something like this. Isn’t it?

It was interesting to watch how the image made by the lens changed in large ways with small movements of me and the camera. I learned quickly to make an exposure when the composition was good and not try to worry about stuff at the edges of the frame that were going to get cropped out any way.

Post-processing consists basically of cropping to the square format (to eliminate the extraneous part of the frame ) and  adjusting the exposure to make sure that the frame is pure black). A few images got small amounts of other processing (curves adjustments, etc.) but nothing major.

I forgot how hot it gets under a dark cloth in the bright sun… even on a day when the air temperature is in the low 70’s. However,  I think that results were worth the “suffering”! What say you?

15 August 2013

A Week Off (from Photographing)

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , — Frank @ 5:00 PM

Looking at the calendar, I realize that it has been a week since my last post; this after a string of daily posts the week before.

All I can say is that I have been busy. This photo explains much of that busyness:

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We had six cords of fire wood delivered in the late afternoon last Saturday. I had it all stacked before lunchtime yesterday (i.e. Wednesday). The stack is roughly eighteen feet by eighteen feet by four and a half feet… about eight cords total.

Every time I went out to work on the stack, I had to ignore the many odes, mainly meadowhawks of both sexes, that were around the yard. After finishing yesterday, we ate lunch on the deck and as soon as we finished eating, I picked up the camera. I made all of these photos within about twenty five feet of the deck. The band-winded meadowhawk is another new species for me.

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8 August 2013

More Time “Down Back”

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:55 PM

Yesterday afternoon, I spent another couple of hours “down back” at “our” beaver-made wetland. Joan came along to do some botanizing, but we quickly went our own ways.

I started out in my usual spot along the edges of the open water at the beaver pond where there was much activity among the emergent vegetation. The spreadwings seemed to be just “hanging out” and feeding. However,  the sphagnum sprites were busy reproducing. I saw (and photographed) two mating wheels and multiple pairs ovipositing.

After a bit, I decided to see what was happening in other ecological niches and wandered “up stream” through the waist-high sedges and grasses.

There were numerous bright red male meadowhawks down in the grasses. I flushed a number of them as I moved. A close look revealed that many were immature. This could be discerned because many of them were still in the process of turning red (see the seventh photo if this series). Male meadowhawks are yellow (and thus look like females) when they are newly emerged.

I eventually found my way to a small, grassy pool that sits between the end of the woodland stream flowing in from the upper beaver swamp and the narrow channel of open water that meanders thought the wet meadow to the beaver pond. This pool is roughly six feet across by 18 feet long and is surrounded by shrubs and tall grasses; it is therefore quite shaded.

A large darner made numerous patrols of the perimeter of the pool in the forty five minutes or so I spent sitting in the edge of this pool. (Waders are wonderful!) This darner never stopped moving while it was in my sight.

Additionally there were three or four spreadwings of two species that I do not commonly see: the slender spreadwing and what I think is a amber-winged spreadwing (another new species for me, if my ID is correct).

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4 August 2013

Another New Species for Me

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

This afternoon I took a stroll up the road to an old log yard I have visited many times before. This was my first visit in the current “ode season”. The old log yard is quite a bit more overgrown that in years past and the blackberries are just starting to ripen… not that I sampled any!

The temperature was in the low 70’s and it was partly cloudy. We had a brief thunderstorm after I got back to the house.

I was surprised by the lack of ode activity this visit. In years past this site was always abuzz with ode activity… but not today.

I saw no damselflies. I did see maybe a dozen female meadowhawks over the 90 or so minutes I spent there. Presumably, these individuals are spending time away from the water feeding and maturing and will head back to the water to mate in due time.

Other than that, I saw only two other individuals: a male black-shouldered spinyleg and a female common whitetail. The black-shouldered spinyleg was a new species for me. That makes two new species in two consecutive days!

The spinyleg came out of nowhere and alit on a leaf near where I was standing. I instantly knew this was not a species I commonly see… it was too big and it had a rather well developed “club” at the end of its abdomen.

I made a few exposures of its dorsal side. It then moved  a few feet away and I was able to get a more lateral view after shifting my position carefully. After three or four more exposures he took off and disappeared into the woods as quickly as he arrived. The total time between first and last exposure… two minutes and three seconds according to the exif data.

When I got back home, I noticed that the purple cone flowers along the wall at the driveway were covered with bees. I spent some minutes making many exposures of the half dozen or so bees present… I’ll only show one photo so as not to bore you!

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“Down Back”, Yesterday Afternoon

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 2:00 PM

About three yesterday afternoon, I donned waders and headed out “down back” to “our” beaver swamp. To me, there is nothing more enjoyable than spending a few hours outside watching (and photographing) the world.

One can tell that August is here because there the meadowhawks appear to great you as you get to the wetland. Meadowhawks spend most of their time at the margin of the beaver meadow. They often perch on the shrubs found there. Yesterday was typical, meadowhawks were the first and last odes I saw.

Out in the meadow proper, I was surprised at the small numbers of darners that were present… maybe it is still a bit early. I think of them as “late season” species… we’ll have to keep looking!

Of course, there was much else going on if one looks carefully.

There were more damselflies out and about than there were dragonflies. Perhaps the most common species present were sphagnum sprites; I saw a number of pairs flying in tandem and ovipositing.

Photographing ovipositing pairs of damselflies is very frustrating. Usually the male is sort of free standing and therefore he is constantly “vibrating”. This makes for “fuzzy” if not downright blurry males. One rare occasions the male finds something solid to grab onto which makes for better photographs (as is the case in the eighth photo shown here).

All of the books about odes make mention that ovipositing puts these critters at risk of predation. This unlucky pair is an example. As I was watching them through the viewfinder a spider came literally from nowhere  and pounced on the pair capturing the female. The actual attack took only a few tenths of a second and my reflexes are not that good! Thus, I only have photos of the aftermath (see the ninth photo in this series). I searched for the spider in all of the frames I shot of the pair and can not find it!

There were also fair numbers of eastern forktails, mainly older females, about. Female eastern forktails start out bright orange and turn a dull gray with age. It is hard to believe that they are the same species much less the same individuals they look so different.

I also saw (and photographed) for the first time a lone fragile forktail; it was about two feet from all of the “spider drama”.

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20 July 2013

Flies… Butter and Dragon, No Damsel!

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 2:00 PM

Since the weather was not quite as oppressive as it has been the past few days, I braved the heat and humidity and headed outside this morning. I wandered the yard with camera in hand for about forty five minutes and almost filled a memory card.

There was much going on. There were many different insects nectaring on the flowers Joan’ garden. There were also a number of different dragonflies going about their business, including a couple exhibiting oblisking behavior.

Oblisking is when an individual points its abdomen more-or-less straight up in the air. This behavior is thought to be involved in thermoregulation. By minimizing the surface exposed to the sun, an individual will stay a bit cooler that it would otherwise.

When I got too hot, I headed into the house for a drink of iced tea and to process these photographs!

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29 June 2013

One Photo from Today

Filed under: Other Insects,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 11:30 PM

After thee inches of rain beginning on Thursday afternoon and continuing through the early hours of this morning, the weather began to slowly clear.

By mid-afternoon, it was at least partly sunny and I headed out with the camera in hand. With thunder storms possible, I did not want to head too far afield, so I headed down the old log road across from the end of driveway.

There was  lots of life out and about… the mosquitoes were numerous and vicious. When the sun was out, there were the odes about as well (mainly variable dancers of both sexes). I also saw (and photographed) a red eft and a small frog in the water running down the road.

I processed seven photos total but I am only going to show one. It is not that the others are bad. Some times, however, one is just very much better than the rest.

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24 June 2013

The Easy, The Hard and The Different

Filed under: Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 10:00 PM

If you want to try your hand at photographing odonates, I recommend starting with four-spotted skimmers. This medium sized (2-3″) dragonfly often returns to the same perch again and again after each hunting foray. It also generally chooses perch at the tops (ends) of branches or other stalks. Lastly, it is not particularly skittish and thus is relatively easy to approach closely. All of this makes four-spotted skimmers easy… to photograph.

If you want to increase your levels of frustration, I recommend trying to photograph the sedge sprite (and a number of other small damselflies). These critters are small (about 1- 1.5″ long) and slender.  They spend most of  their time low down in the vegetation and seem to flit about at random.  All of this makes sedge sprites (and their ilk) hard… to photograph.

Every once in a while I find myself on the wrong side of an ode in terms of the light. Sometimes when this happens, the silhouette neuron in my brain goes off. This allows me to make something different… photographically.

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I made the photograph of the iris as I headed back towards home. The sun, which by 6:30 was relatively low in the sky, had gone behind the clouds making for some nice light. The irises are nearing the end of their season so I doubt that there will be too many more chances to photograph them… until next summer.

23 June 2013

Another Two Days of Odeing

Filed under: "Camp",Monadnock Region,Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 8:30 AM

I seem to be getting behind in my posting… or maybe I am spending too much time odeing… nah!!!

Identifying the subjects is definitely the slow step.

Anyway… Joan and I spent Thursday afternoon at camp. We got the sailboat in the water and then “played”.

I wandered the shore of the cove,  with these results:

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On Friday afternoon, I got distracted by all of the odes in the yard and spent a short time (a half hour from the first of these photos to the last, according to the metadata) wandering the yard with camera in hand.

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