The Author – Bart Busschots
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Feb
27
Photo of the Week 104 & 105 – Irish Wild Flowers
Filed Under Photography on February 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment
With all the madness of upgrading to SnowLeopard and my failed upgrade to Aperture 3 I’m now one day away from being three weeks behind on my Photos of the Week posts. To catch up I’m going to post a double post today, and a single one tomorrow. As always with multiple posts, I’m going to pick a theme, and this time I’ve chosen macros of Irish wild flower. Both these flowers are small and delicate, so you may miss their subtle beauty unless you take the time to look closely.
The first shot is of one of my very favorite flowers, Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum). It’s a wild variety of Geranium, and there’s lovely detail in it’s small pink flowers. It’s very common in Ireland, but it’s hard to get it with and uncluttered background as it usually grows in crowded hedgerows. I’ve taken many other shots of these little beauties, but I really like the clean bokeh in this one.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
The second shot I’ve chosen is of an absolutely tiny flower I found growing on some waste-ground near Leixlip Louisa Bridge railway station. These little guys are Eyebrights (Euphrasia officinalis agg.), and there are many different varieties in Ireland. Each of the different markings have subtly different coloured markings, and petals that are of slightly different shapes. These little guys are so small and so short that I literally had to lie flat on my stomach with the camera touching the ground to get this shot.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Nov
23
Photo of the Week 92 – A Cabbage Leaf
Filed Under Photography on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment
When you find yourself getting bored of shooting in the sample place, a great way to get out of a rut is to force yourself to use just one lens all day. This forced perspective gives you no choice but to think differently about the location. This is what I did one changeable afternoon this summer. I stuck on my 55-200mm telephoto, and forced myself to use nothing else for the day. Being out in the beautiful Cavan countryside I would normally be shooting wide angle landscape shots. But, being confined to the telephoto I had to think smaller. That was when I noticed the water drops from a recent shower pooling on a cabbage leaf, and grabbed this shot.
I use this shot as one of the 20 or so that I have automatically rotating every 30 minutes as my desktop wallpaper. Each time it comes round in the rotation it brings a smile to my face. Normally I don’t share images bigger than 1000 pixels, but in this case I’m also sharing two larger versions designed to be used as desktop wallpapers.
on Flickr – Full-Size – Wallpaper (4:3) – Wallpaper (16:10)
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: Apart from the basics edits in Aperture (exposure, white balance, detail & vibrancy), the shot was also tweaked a little using Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin to give it more of a sense of depth to draw the eye in better.
Oct
26
Photo of the Week 88 – A Common Spotted Orchid
Filed Under Photography on October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments
A few weeks ago I chose my favourite butterfly shot of the year, this week I’m choosing my favourite wild flower shot of the year. This was a really hard choice because I really got to grips with my Nikkor 55-200mm zoom lens this year, so there were a lot of decent flower shots to choose from. However, in the end, this shot won, in no small part because of how pretty a flower it is! I just love wild Orchids, and always have. When you stumble across one you feel like you’ve found a little treasure! In this case the Orchid is a Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). I’m not sure the name really suits the flower, ‘common’ implies abundant to me, and that doesn’t seem to tally with reality.
I managed to find a marshy field with quite a few of these beauties near Leixlip Louisa Bridge train station, and after much searching I found one that was blemish-free and standing out on its own enough to get a nice soft un-cluttered bokeh. The light was also pretty much perfect as I shot it in the early evening.
What I really love about this shot is that I had almost noting to do in post – it came out of the camera almost exactly like this! I Just did a few very minor tweaks in Aperture to get the crop just as I wanted it, and to pop the colour and the contrast just a little bit.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
Oct
6
Photo of the Week 85 – Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on October 6, 2009 | 3 Comments
This is one of my favourite butterfly shots of the year. The season’s pretty much over now, so the changes are this will remain my favourite form the year. For a start, I think the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) is one of the nicest species we have in Ireland, but this shot also illustrates why I love my Nikkor 55-200mm F3.5-5.6 zoom lens very well. When you’re shooting flowers or butterflies, you want the subject to be in sharp focus, and the background to be out of focus so that it doesn’t distract from the subject. You don’t want a busy complex background competing for the viewer’s eye. It’s that blurry background that gives shots that pro feel, sometimes called ‘the magazine look’.
This lens allows for a really shallow depth of field right in the sweet spot of the lens (around f8), and gives a wonderfully smooth and creamy bokeh (the out of focus areas). As lenses go, this is a cheap lens, I paid less than €300 for it a few years ago, and it’s come down in price since. A great value lens of you’re a Nikon DX shooter. There’s a new fancy VR (vibration reduction) version of this lens too, but TBH, I think VR is over-kill on this lens. If you can afford it, great, but I certainly don’t miss it. This is my work-horse lens, and I love it to bits.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
- Processing: This shot is pretty much as it came out of the camera. It has been cropped to improve the composition, and subtly tweaked in Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin to selectively improve the contrast on the butterfly.
Sep
20
Photo of the Week 83 – Grey Willow in Spring
Filed Under Photography on September 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment
This is one of my favourite photos of the whole year so far. To me it says Spring better than anything else I’ve ever shot. It’s the first leaves starting to sprout on a Grey Willow (Salix cinerea) tree growing along the banks of the Royal Canal at Deey Bridge between Maynooth and Leixlip.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/250 sec
- Focal Length: 80mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Aug
5
Photo of the Week 76 – A Painted Lady
Filed Under Photography on August 5, 2009 | 1 Comment
Last week’s photo of the week was the result of serendipity – this weeks is the inverse, it’s the result of planning and dogged determination.
I was, and indeed still am, working on a long-term project to photography all 28 species of butterfly that live in Ireland (you can follow my progress here). I’d been keeping an eye on the different species I saw flying around each time I came outside – and the day before I’d seen that there were Painted Ladies on the wing – a species I was missing!
The time was right, the weather was right, so I chose a spot (the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College campus in Maynooth), grabbed my gear, and set out on my mission to capture a Painted Lady. I was in a great mood, full of anticipation, but I wasn’t expecting a quick result. Butterflies never do what you tell them, and rarely do what you’d like!
I waited. Then I waited some more. Then a little more. Finally, out of the corner of my eye I spotted one! A Painted Lady. But it didn’t sit still. It flew from flower to flower never landing long enough to even get a focus lock. Then it flew over the wall and out of sight. On the one hand it was a relief to see that my quarry was indeed around, and that I’d chosen my spot correctly. On the other hand, it was a frustrating near-miss. But I continued to wait. Slowly and watchfully walking around around and around the garden.
Eventually another Painted Lady came into the garden. This one was a little more co-operative, landing on flowers and feeding – but not in a very photogenic way. I shot about 25 shots of this guy, but none were good enough to make it here. I waited some more. Another one, this one was feeding on fabulous pink Daisies, and what’s more the Daisies were tall enough to throw the other plants near them totally out of focus when I got in close with the 55-200mm. The setting was perfect, vibrant colours and a lovely bokeh. BUT, my winged friend insisted on landing on low-down flowers, hence always being half-obsgtructed by one or more taller flower heads. I didn’t get the perfect shot, but I could now see it in my head. It was a Painted Lady on one of these pink Daisies with that fabulous green bokeh. all I had to do now was wait.
I stopped making my rounds of the garden and stood watch over my perfect setting. It took another half an hour, but in the end, I was rewarded with the shot you see here. In all I spent two hours trying to get this shot. I think it was time well spent! (don’t worry, I wasn’t bored, I had my iPhone with me and was listening to Photo Focus – doing as the jingle instructs – making pictures, not just taking pictures!)
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7EV
Jul
12
Photo of the Week 73 – Holly in Bloom
Filed Under Photography on July 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted one of my flower shots, so this week I’m sharing my favourite flower pick of the year so far. We all know how lovely red Holly berries (Ilex aquifolium) are around Christmas time, but very few people ever notice the delicate white flowers from which those berries come. This shot shows a closeup look at a Holly branch in bloom. This tree is growing in the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College campus (AKA NUI Maynooth South Campus) in Maynooth, Ireland.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 130mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7EV
Jun
14
Photo of the Week 67, 68 & 69 – Butterflies
Filed Under Photography on June 14, 2009 | 3 Comments
Between one thing and another I’ve missed the last two weekends so for the first time ever I’m doing a triple post for Photo of the week. Butterflies are an on-going photographic project of mine, so I thought I’d share three of my recent favourites with you all.
My first choice is a shot of a rather small butterfly, the Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas). I much prefer the Flemish name for this little guy which translates as a Fire Butterfly, much more dramatic, and IMO, more appropriate! We have this species in Ireland too, but this shot was taken in Belgium when I spent a week there over Easter. This guy was surprisingly co-opperative, hanging around for a long time and letting me get close and get shots from lots of different angles. I got three really nice shots of this guy, but I’ve chosen this as my favourite because of the diagonal composition.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
The second shot I’ve chosen is of a pair of Small Whites (Pieris rapae) mating on a grass stalk. Again, this is a species we have in Ireland, but the shot was again taken in Belgium. I like a lot of things about this shot, the grass bokeh, the grass seed stalk poking into focus at the right edge, and the overall composition, but what really makes it for me is how it illustrates the different colours these butterflies can be. They’re always white on top, but underneath they range from green to yellow, sometimes much deeper greens that in this shot.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0EV
Finally, my last choice is a recent shot I took here in Ireland on the section of towpath along the Royal Canal between Pike’s Bridge and Deey bridge between Maynooth & Leixlip. Much of the towpath has a gravel pathway along it, but this bit doesn’t, it’s pure nature for about a mile, almost constantly surrounded by trees, and passing through a cutting. You really feel like you’re out in the middle of nowhere, even though you’re no more than 10 minutes cycle from Maynooth or Leixlip. There are also much fewer people walking and cycling along the stretch, so you get to see much more wildlife. Like the Small Copper earlier, this guy also sat still for ages and let me get close and get lots of different angles. I picked this one as my favourite because I find the composition pleasing, and like how you can see both the top and underside of his wings, showing the cool patterns underneath, and the vibrant orange tip that gives this species it’s name, Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines). I also like the strange grassy flower he’s feeding on, Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0EV
Mar
17
Photo of the Week 56 – Green-Veined White on Lavender
Filed Under Photography on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Without a doubt the most common butterflies in Ireland are the so-called “Cabbage Whites”. These break down into a few related species, but they are all very similar. Just because there are a lot of them around though, doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful little insects. This particular shot is of a Green-Veined White (Pieris napi), and what I love about it is the colours around the butterfly. Being mostly white, there isn’t much colour in the actual butterfly, but with the butterfly feeding on a vividly colourful Lavender flower, and with lots of lush green in the background, the shot is still full of colour.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Feb
11
Photo of the Week 51 – Marsh Willowherb
Filed Under Photography on February 11, 2009 | 2 Comments
I’m a little bit late again this week, though I’m a day less late than I was last week … so progress at least 🙂
Anyhow, the photo I’ve chosen for this week is one I shot last autumn along the towpath of the Royal Canal near Maynooth, or, to be more precise, between Pike’s Bridge and Deey Bridge. This is a closeup of a single Marsh Willowherb (Epilobium palustre) flower.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/200 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.67