Macro photography

For the last couple of days I have been using my macro lens. Its fun, but at the same time difficult given the slightest breeze or any other vibration result in blurry images. Ideally, always use a tripod but I find it a bit awkward. I get quickly tired of setting up the tripod and composing the picture, instead of just doing it freehand. It does result with many more blurred images, but usually I take series of pictures and just remove once that are bad.
Unfortunately I have not used the macro lens so much though I know how fun it is to get up close to the insects, the inside of the flowers and etc... But I'll try some more macro photo of this year.
Today we are off to the Isle of Skye in Scotland, an amazing place to visit. This will be our second trip there, but its too nice not to. And this time we know more what we want to see and explore those places, so hopefully I will be back with lots of great pictures from there :)

Happy Easter All!
                                                                    

Magnolia

Magnolia

Inside a Magnolia

2 Lady-bugs inside a magnolia

Inside a tulip

                                                                    

Crocus

Last week was warm and sunny so I took the opportunity to spend few days down in the botanical garden here in Sheffield.
The crocus was at its prime but as usual is was over just in few days. I tried to get photos with butterflies feeding from them, but unfortunately I only had the macro lens with me the first day and it was impossible to approach the butterflies with that. So I decided to take the big zoom with me the next day, as with my luck it was strong winds and the butterflies never even showed up. The day was not wasted as there are always many other things to photograph there but more about that in the next blog.
                                                                           
                                                                           

Bugs and forest flowers

This morning I took the opportunity to go down to the Rivelin Valley before the rain comes.
Overcast weather as it is today usually fits excellent to photograph flowers and insects because it gives a more even light.
So it was that I occupied myself for couple of  hours. Now it's nice in the forests with all the small flowers anywhere in the Rivelin Valley.
I photographed with macro lens and Nikon 3Ds with iso 1000 because it's so dark down there and hand held.

Anemone nemorosa

Yesterday I was off to a place where I  have seen anemones, I wanted to shoot them before they disappear, which certainly happens within a week.
The strange thing is that I have never seen the blue or yellow variant of it  here in england, while in Sweden we have them both.
And wood anemones contained here is quite hard to find in bigger forests which is a bit strange, now I compare with sweden and there you can find them much easier in forests. But maybe it is the the slightly higher altitude compared with Stockholm that makes them not thrive in forests here.

I went down to the Anemone place later in the afternoon to take pictures of anemones in the evening light, hard daylight is rarely a good idea to take pictures of flowers.
I spent a few hours to the anemones before the nice evening light disappeared behind the mountains.
I photographed only with macro lens and my old Nikon D90 because a get a little longer focal length with that combination, (crop factor) which I think is great when you're shooting smaller flowers.

Squirrel

I have not only photographed flowers when I have been down to the Botanical Gardens.
I also have tried to shoot squirrels with a macro lens, which turned out to not be the easiest thing to do.
The short depth of field that you get from a macro lens makes it very difficult to focus on the right place on the moving squirrels.
You do not have time to check in the viewfinder, so it's best just to shoot and hope some pictures will be good.
What is the right place to focus on then, I think, and many other photographers that the eyes should ideally be in focus.
But it can be fun to experiment a bit, too, as with the macro lens you can try to take pictures of details on the animals if u are lucky to get close to them. :))
So here are some pictures of the experiment.

Check out the teeth

This one is taken with the Wide angle lens