Saturday morning marco photo walk

This past Saturday one of the photo clubs I am a member of had a Macro photo walk at a local park. We decided that it should be held at 6:30am so we could get out and shoot before the bugs became too active and the breeze started up. We have several members show and had a good time.

All these photos were shot using my Canon Macro 100mm f/2.8 lens. All of these were shot using natural light.

My first photo from the day is of an orange bug on a yellow flower. I like this photo because of the way the light was on him and the edge of the flower. My setting were: iso 200, f/3.5, 1/100sec

My second photo is of a spider. I like the way he was sitting there with the light hitting him. I would have liked to have taken him from a slightly different angle but he moved when I moved. My setting were: iso 200. f/3.5, 1/100sec

My third photo is of the spider's web. This was a bit of a challenge because I could not get all the web in focus because my depth of field was too shallow and the water I misted it with kept evaporating very fast. My setting were: iso 200, f/3.5, 1/320sec

My last photo is of a bee. He was very active and was a bit of challenge to get one that I liked. My setting were: iso 200, f/5.6, 1/160sec

All of these photos were very minimally edited, most of these have not even cropped.

Boyson Trail

I have been on many mornings going out with my camera on the Boyson Trail. The trail goes from near Bowman Woods winding along the Indian Creek through Thomas Park ending at
Hanna Park.

On these walks I take pictures of whatever catches my eye that morning. I don't take a lot of pictures and sometimes I don't quite get the shot I wanted. The nice thing is that I can try again the next time I am on the trail. I will be posting pictures off and on from this trail as we go through the year as a way to see how it changes through the different seasons.

The lens I have had on my camera for these walks is my Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Zoom. This lens is not as sharp as my macro but is a better walk around lens.

This first photo is of a squirrel with a nut in his mouth. He chirpped at me until I noticed him and then he ran into the tree. He is not as sharp as I would because I had my camera set too slow because I had been taking pictures of some wildflowers along the trail. The settings for this photo were iso 200, f/8, 1/12sec

The second photo is of two bees on a yellow wildflower. This photo is much sharper than the squirrel but is not as sharp as my macro lens. I took this photo after I had taken the squirrel photo. My setting for this photo were iso 100, f/9, 1/50sec

These are the only two photos that I am going to share this week from my walks along the Boyson Trail. I will be back on Boyson Trail and there will be more photos. This is a very popular trail here I have never been on the trail when I did not run into a lot of other people on it as well.

Out early one morning

This past week it has been much nicer so I have been out more to taking photographs. I have been heading to near by park first thing in the morning sometimes before coffee. Usually this time of year the parks flower beds are over flowing with flowers but this year they are not doing as well because of the very hot and dry weather we have been having.

Here are some that I took Friday morning at Noelridge park using my Macro lens using natural light. The reason I chose these to share is that they are bright and cheerful to me.

Here is a Sunflower. I like the way the leaves are pointing both right and left and that there are still a few dew drop still on it. My settings for this photo were: iso 200, f/11, 1/80sec

Here is a bee on a Sunflower. My setting for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/125sec

Here is a close up of the same bee. My setting for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/64sec

Here is the center of a lily with an ant on the petal near the center. I just love the color of this photo. My settings for this photo were: iso 400, f/11, 1/50sec

State Fair Results

Earlier this summer I entered 4 photographs into the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon and one of my photos was accepted. This is actually a big deal because only a little over 20% of the photos submitted are accepted.

The one that was accepted was San Fernando Cathedral which is in San Antonio, TX. I took this photograph on March 16, 2012 at 9:30pm.

The other three photos I entered but were not accepted are below:

Iowa State Campanile

Bricks Bar and Grill

Pink Lily

If you have a chance to go to the Iowa State Fair make sure you take time to go through the Photography Salon in the Cultural Center Building. There are a lot of fabulous photos that were entered this year. I would love to post about the winners but I do not have their permission. For the list of the results you can go to the Iowa State Fair website: Iowa State Fair and look under the competition tab for the competition results.