Uploads from Heath McDonald

Dance Fly - ?

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:10:31 -0700

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning, a single shot image.

This one was quite a bit smaller than the previous one I uploaded so I assume this is a male.

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Green Veined White - Pieris napi (female)

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:21:56 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken in the early evening at GB Gruffy Nature reserve on the mendip hills in Somerset.

Made a snap decision to go out before sunset up to GB Gruffy nature reserve, the wind had dropped off and when I arrived I found six Green Veined Whites amongst a patch of Blue Bells less than 50 feet from where I had parked the car.

I wish it was always like this!

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Oak Eggar - Lasiocampa quercus

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Mon, 20 May 2013 02:22:01 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning, a new find and a tricky one to photograph, the hairs along its back have a metallic like sheen which is almost impossible to record in the image.

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Orange Tip - Anthocaris cardamines (female)

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sun, 19 May 2013 03:04:19 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning.

First butterfly shot of the year and first sighting of an Orange Tip. I had nearly finished up for the morning and was walking back when I noticed this butterfly perched on the end of what I think is wild honeysuckle. Must have missed it when I first arrived!

Managed to get a few shots before the sun came through and it flew away!

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Scorpion Fly - Panorpa communis (male)

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:16:05 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning, a single shot image taken just after sunrise.

I have been trying to photograph for these for quite a while now, but most of the times they are too active, fortunately a cold morning has made this one quite lethargic.

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Hoverfly - Sphaerophoria species

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:58:43 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning.

A 30 shot focus stack, processed in Zerene Stacker using a combination of PMax and DMap modes.

Canon EOS5D MkII, MP-E65 f2.8, ISO100, f5, 1/8 sec

Initially I was not sure which species this was, the shape of the abdomen looked odd but when I had completed the stack I realised that I was probably looking at a female' Sphaerophoria' full of eggs.

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Hoverfly - Paragus haemorrhous

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:52:52 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning,

A tiny little black hoverfly about 5mm in length.

A 31 shot focus stack, processed in Zerene Stacker using a combination of PMax and DMap modes.

Canon EOS5D MkII, MP-E65 f2.8, ISO100, f5, 1/5 sec

Not a perfect stack by a long way, this little hoverfly moved quite a bit, more than I realised at the time, so there has been quite a bit of retouching of the final image to remove the overlaps that were showing, doesn't look to bad in lower resolution but you can still see some areas that I was not able to fix on the high res version.

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Dance Fly - Empis tessellata

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:30:38 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken on Axbridge Hill in the early morning, this is a 26 shot focus stack, processed in Zerene Stacker using a combination of PMax and DMap modes. This stack is using the Sigma 180mm f3.5 at f7.1, 1/13 sec at ISO 100.

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Dance Fly - Empis tessellata?

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:14:09 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken in the early morning on Axbridge Hill in Somerset.

A single shot image taken at f16, I also did a stack which I am still working through, not 100% sure of the id, it does look a bit pale so wondered if it has recently molted or a different species. I have now included a link for a high res version, hope it works!

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Nomada Bee - possibly Nomada ruficornis

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:16:45 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken in the early morning on Axbridge Hill in Somerset.

Different bee but the same species, this time a 42 shot focus stack processed using a mix of both DMAP and PMAX methods in Zerene Stacker with a slight crop to fine tune the composition. Still quite a bit of movement in the antennae which I was mostly able to clean up with the exception of the very tip.

2.5x magnification on MP-E65.

If anyone can supply a definitive id, I would be very grateful.

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Nomada Bee - possibly Nomada ruficornis

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Tue, 07 May 2013 07:12:17 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken in the early morning on Axbridge Hill in Somerset.

Looked for these before but never found them until now and like buses, found over half a dozen of them roosting on various plants.

Exactly a 100 shot focus stack processed using a mix of both DMAP and PMAX methods in Zerene Stacker with a slight crop to fine tune the composition.

Just over 2x magnification on MP-E65.

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Hoverfly - Cheilosia grossa

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:42:04 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

The same hoverfly taken in the early morning at East Harptree Woods in Somerset on the 20th April 2013.

This time I added a 1.4 x TC to get a bit more close up detail on the face. I'm always impressed how this combination produces excellent results, virtually no deterioration in image quality.

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Sawfly - Dolerus niger

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 08:54:36 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

This image was taken in the early morning at East Harptree Woods in Somerset on the 20th April 2013.

Not the most exciting of insects, but it took over an hour of searching before I found something to photograph and this was it.

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Hoverfly - Cheilosia grossa

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 03:53:05 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

This image was taken in the early morning at East Harptree Woods in Somerset on the 20th April 2013.

Finally managed to get out with the camera, work and weather had been conspiring against me!

There were quite a few of these big Hoverflies about when the sun was up, but quite difficult to spot when looking for one that had settled the previous night, surprising little else about too!

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Music for her faithful friend!

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:19:08 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Taken in the narrow streets of Siena, Tuscany.

My Roof!

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:33:46 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Another image taken last year's holiday whilst looking around the town of Greve in Chianti.

I'm not sure what I liked the most in this image, the textures and patterns or the complete and utter contempt this cat had for me! As a person who is owned by 2 cats, I'd know that look anywhere!!

Mother and daughter

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:58:14 -0700

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

One from last year on our holiday in Italy, taken when visiting a small church in the village of Montefioralle. An experiment in black and white!

Components Adrift!

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:33:18 -0800

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Just a bit of nonsense really, done mostly with modellers wire, blue-tac and a black card backdrop, suspended with fishing line from my daughters music stand. The rest is processed in photoshop.

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Tick - Ixodes ricinus

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:16:58 -0800

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

I don’t think you can find anyone who will say that this is their favourite animals, more like the bane of photographers and walkers alike, something I know from personal experience. But with calmer and brighter weather, this was a chance to try out the linear stage I’ve been hoarding since last year, so I actually went looking for these as they are one of the few things around at the moment which are very easy to find, also at just over 3mm in length they made the perfect opportunity to try a bit of focus stacking on the MP-E65.

This is a stack of 32 images taken at around 4 x magnification and processed in Zerene stacker using the PMax method, with a small amount of retouching to remove some halo. I did notice that there was some camera shake in some of the frames which was probably as a result of taking the next image too quickly after making the focus adjustment. Although it was quite cold and just after sunrise there is a surprising amount of movement and out of a total of over 830 images, this was the only series that didn’t require huge amounts of post processing. This is probably not that obvious at smaller sizes but this composite image doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny at full size.

The overall setup worked very well and making the adjustments was very easy, though with depth of field being so small I realised I wasn’t sure how much adjustment to make on the micrometer, even in Liveview, the focal plane is difficult to see clearly, so in the end it was down to experimentation.

On the whole, quite pleased with the outcome and looking forward to doing a bit more of this, roll on the Spring!

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St Marks Fly - Bibio marci

nobody@flickr.com (Heath McDonald) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:10:15 -0800

Heath McDonald posted a photo:

Another one from last year, this was taken in the early morning at GB Gruffy Nature Reserve in Somerset on the 19th May 2012.

It's a close an image as I could find for a Valentines day piccie, such is my extensive collection of cute and cuddly insects, so try not to get too excited!!

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