By Stagsden Pond – Alive with Life

 

 

I had decided that it might well be worth paying Stagsden a visit with a longer lens than when on my last visit to the Pond that lies to the side of a new Industrial Park there.

Perhaps the long lens scared the inhabitants off, since just as I was setting up the tripod close to pond edge reeds, there was a loud explosion of flapping from the trees, and a Heron and Red Kite made a rapid exit, before I had a chance to remove the camera and lens from the unset up tripod, I had but a few seconds to at least record their departure! They were never to return, sad to report.

I decided to mount the Benbo tripod as low as possible, so that I was no higher than the pond-side reeds, and this took time as the sloping edge was difficult to find a sound support at a height that accommodated the central column, and I was determined to keep as quiet as possible in the hope that the two birds might return.

I had hoped that I might capture some of the dragonflies that flew along the reed tops, but they never followed a standard routine that I might plan where I might catch them in flight; they spent most of their time in the air, and in chasing each other, leaving only those in the far distance, which was out of reasonable capture range, despite my best efforts.

I spotted a grassy cut path off to my left, and decided this might prove more profitable, but only once did I briefly spot a dragonfly venture here, but one of my favourites from the insect kingdom were to be found – the hoverfly, and a few bees, and numerous wild flowers, so for a while I concentrated my efforts on these, and wandered the path’s length till it came out at the fields’ edge, but except for the start, there was no extra part of the pond to be found accessible.

The afternoon was not wasted, but neither was it what I had hoped I might find to satisfy my intention of taking shots of dragonflies in flight, and they barely even feature! I did however get to use the 1.4 Converter and begin to understand how best to use it, as it limits the positioning of the focus point for auto-focus immovably in the centre of the screen.

Brogborough Flying Insect Bonanza

Having used the Canon 100-400mm lens a few days back to record the flying insects of Brogborough Lake, mainly once they had settled for brief spells of rest and recuperation, I decided to return with something longer, and I decided that it might be beneficial not only to use the Sigma Sports 150-600mm, but to add their 1.4 Converter to gain a greater image size. Since the camera body was the EOS7D MkII, this in itself gave me a greater effective focal length over the full frame 5D MkIII, with also a faster response.

The slight drawback is the autofocus point is fixed at the centre, making it harder to place the subject off-centre, and so on occasion I reverted to manual focussing. Another snag when using autofocus, was how with moving reeds the focus would hunt or simply drift when foreground features came within view between the camera and subject. The bright weather we are experiencing currently gives me the chance to use the Converter and also to keep the ISO speed low with an adequately fast shutter speed.

Trying to find my subject fast with a long lens is difficult, so I experimented with pulling the focal length wider, to find my subject, then zooming in to bring it both larger and into focus, but this often meant that my subject had tired of that location and moved on whilst I was still either trying to find it or regain focus! From my observations the camera took less time and was more accurate, but suffered from losing focus fairly often, so I tended to attempt a compromise whilst manually focussing by adopting a smaller aperture to improve the depth of field to compensate for my lack of accuracy. It is not often in this country that we have this luxury; it is far more likely we are considering upping the ISO to give us a chance of a small aperture alongside a fast shutterspeed!

It allowed me to observe closely what was happening, and I am sure I was witnessing the female dragonflies laying her fertilised eggs beneath the water’s surface. Something else also was that much like crows mob red kite, I was watching the damselflies doing much the same with dragonflies.

I was sitting on a low bank with my tripod legs spread such that the camera was at eye level and really solid and this meant it was really comfortable, but did make it less easy when it came to later wishing to rise; I was also lucky for at the least the early part to be shaded from the heat of the sun under a blue sky with just a few mare’s tails for clouds, by a tall hawthorn bush to my left.

I was pleased with the end results, but it was a shame there was no regular flight path to give me the chance to attempt to preset my focus and have the insects fly into the sharp zone for them to be captured on the wing, but that’s just greed on my part!

Front Garden Hoverflies

On returning from getting a roll for lunch, I spotted a number of hoverflies by the front door, despite a strong breeze blowing the bushes, I just could not resist trying to capture them, as I like a challenge. I knew it was going to be hard to capture one in flight, but it did not stop me popping the 100mm Macro on the 7D with the 1.4 converter to try my luck.

I set 800 ISO and put the camera into manual mode having used it as a lightmeter first to ascertain what it considered the exposure to be – it read 1/250th at 5.6, so I set it at 1/250th at f/11 and popped up the flash, and after a few shots; some in sunlight some in shade, and some that I erased due to poor framing or movement or focus blur, I twice got shots of one of the hoverflies in flight. I kept the better of the two for the last shot in the gallery.

I have to own up that I find them a fascinating insect, and I love the opportunity to record the detail of their structure and strive to improve the quality of in flight images I capture. The females have distinctly separated multi-lens eyes, those of the males meet in the middle. A while back, I also learned that if I place my hand beneath them when they are hovering, they will often land, hence the shots on my fingers.

Easter Sunday, Caddington-2010

After so many grey days and drizzle, Easter Sunday seemed like the first day of Spring – not bad when nearly a week after the official British Summer Time! I had hoped to have mown the lawn on the Saturday, but circumstances conspired against that happening, so after watching Sebastian Vettel win the Malaysian Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton come from twentieth to sixth, I was in the mood to mow the lawns back and front. Moss hardly constitutes a lawn, I suppose there must be some grass, but what I kept emptying into the bin did not suggest there was much! I also added Budleia branches from earlier trimming.

With the sun being blown from behind clouds every so often, I took out my new 100mm Macro with its Image Stabilisation for its first serious outing and added the 1.4x converter to give me greater length and took a walk through Caddington village to see what I could capture of the first tentative signs of Spring, it was rewarding, not the least because of those I met as much as the shots I took.

I am hoping that tomorrow has some sun to give me another chance.