Category Archives: wildlife

A Small But Creepy Spider

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Another post that will creep out a bunch of my family.  Look away now if you don’t like spiders!  I was spending more time in the garden trying to get good shot so the bees that were all over our flowers.  I saw something small move on one of the plants and it turned out to be a tiny spider.  I am not sure whether it was trying to catch the pollinators that were coming to the flowers or it was doing something different.  Fortunately, the autofocus seemed to do a really good job of identifying the spider and focusing on it.  Since eyes are the things that the autofocus hunts for, it had plenty to work with.  The little creature is probably not the most endearing thing around but it is pretty interesting.

Bee Feet Details

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In my quest for more bee photographs, I was set up in our back garden by some plants that were proving to be very popular with the bees.  My hope had been to get different types of bee to compare their colors but I was actually getting mainly the same type.  Still, it was a chance to get more images of these amazing little insects.  As I was going through the images afterwards, I was aiming to weed out the ones that weren’t in focus or were focused on the wrong thing.

As I was working through them, I came to some images where the head of the bee was not so sharp but the feet were very clear.  I had imagined that bee feet were just a single extension of the leg but apparently that isn’t the case.  They seem to be more of a claw type of foot.  I guess this makes grabbing on to things a lot easier.  I had no idea their feet were this complex.  Hope you find it interesting too.

Swallows Over the Grassland

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These shots are not going to win any awards but they are an example of trying a lot of goes to maybe get something that works.  While waiting for the arrival of some interesting jets, I was standing near some grassland south of Tacoma.  The sun was out and I guess that there were plenty of bugs in the air.  This had attracted a lot of swallows.  I love watching swallows fly because they are so fast and agile.  They are amazing aviators.  I never see the bugs that they are catching but clearly they know what they are up to.  Of course, the targeting of the bugs means that they are always changing course.  Since they are so small, a long lens is necessary but tracking a rapidly weaving small bird with a long lens is a tough call.  At least modern autofocus can give you a fighting chance of getting a shot.  Will it be razor sharp?  Probably not but here are some of the results that weren’t total failures.

A Fluffy Caterpillar

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No deep insight, equipment review or technique experimentation for this one.  I was out in the back yard and a caterpillar was in the grass.  The black and orange coloration combined with the hairy coat it had just seemed like it deserved to be photographed.  A quick grab of the camera with a macro lens and a few shots and then I left it to do whatever it was doing.

This Stabilization is Amazing

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Another episode in the testing of the RF 200-800 for today’s post.  This is more focused on the image stabilization in the lens.  When shooting stills, I have commented on the slightly odd jerking effects visible in the viewfinder.  I think this is most apparent when panning very slowly and I think the camera is trying to work out if you mean to stay still or not.  However, one area which is really effective at showing the capabilities of the stabilization is video.

I have some footage below that is taken with the lens at 800mm and hand held.  No tripod or monopod here.  The rabbit was at the other end of our back yard while the bees were on the lavender plants in our beds.  You can see that the image is remarkably stable.  It is amazing to see it lock on so well.  I have also shot some video of an F-35B in the hover, also at 800mm.  It was interesting to see a lot of movement in the viewfinder for a moment and then it seemed to lock in on what it was doing and then things get really solid.  This tech is most impressive.

The Hummers Are a Quick Test for the New Lens

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One of the things that I knew would be a limitation of the RF 200-800 was the aperture which is a lot smaller than for really expensive lenses (yes, it is also expensive but not in the tens of thousands type of expensive).  In low light, this is going to be an issue and it would be interesting to see how things worked out.  When I got home with it, I was sitting on the deck when some hummingbirds started feeding on the flowers in one of our beds.  This area is in shade a lot of the time so light was limited.  I was rather pleased with the effectiveness of the focus, the sharpness at full zoom and the relatively limited noise related issues from the R3.  This is a combination that looks like it could be quite useful for a wide variety of occasions.  Not the solution for everything but definitely versatile.

I Guess Ospreys Love Seafair

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Two years ago, I went down to Lake Washington to watch Seafair.  I posted then about an Osprey that was flying along the shoreline while the airshow was underway.  This year I went again and, while it wasn’t as frequent a visitor as last time, we did get another osprey checking out our part of the shore once more.  We were well away from the display axis so no risk of an osprey checking out a gas turbine.  Such a cool looking bird to see.  Soon they will be gone for the season.

Tiny Crabs in the Tidepool

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I posted about a beach on Vancouver Island that we had scoped out as a possible spot for later.  While looking around, I spent a bit of time checking out some of the tide pools on the shore.  As is often the case, they initially look quiet but, if you spend a little time waiting, you start to notice movement.  I found a crab scuttling around in one of the pools and grabbed some photos of it.  What I didn’t realize was that there was a second one alongside that had obviously been less mobile while I was watching.  Lots of barnacles in the water too and a ton of snail-like creatures.  Don’t think they were hermit crabs but who knows?

Getting Eye Level With the Rabbits

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There are times when I just seem to want to take photos of something, irrespective of what it might be or what I might do with the images afterwards.  I was sitting out on the deck behind our house and there were some rabbits eating our grass (as there often are).  I had been watching some videos on wildlife photography and they had been emphasizing the need to get the camera angle low to improve the focus on the animal and separate it from the background.  I had the camera and a long lens and there were some rabbits so why not give it a go.

Unfortunately, the rabbits are rather skittish, so some patience was required to get down on the ground without scaring them away.  Then I had to wait until they looked in the right direction.  Meanwhile, I was struggling with the angle being so low that the rabbits were partially obscured by the ground.  (I might also mention, that wasn’t the only struggle.  Lying on the ground for a while was making me quite uncomfortable and, when I did finally get up, it wasn’t elegant.) These were the results of my experimentation.