Sunday 13 December 2015

More images taken with the Venus Laowa 15mm wideangle macro lens

Back in August I posted this review of the Venus Laowa 15mm wideangle macro lens. It's taken me a while to get around to it, but here are a few more images taken with this lens during a couple of early morning sessions in August.

I should perhaps add that my views of the lens haven't changed. I still consider it to be an excellent lens that is capable of taking unique images but it isn't the easiest lens to use. My review above elaborates on these points.


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Common Darter Dragonfly

Six-Spot Burnet Moth

Common Darter Dragonfly

Blue-Tailed Damselfly

Brown-Lipped Snail

Blue-Tailed Damselfly

Common Darter Dragonfly

 Common Darter Dragonfly

and for completeness, here's a Fly Agaric from November



Friday 11 December 2015

BBC Wildlife Calendar 2016

BBC Wildlife calendars - free each year with the December issue - have adorned the wall of my office for many years. I'm therefore very pleased to have one of my images included in the 2016 calendar. The image is a close-up of a Brown Hawker dragonfly and provides the image for April.

As usual the calendar features some excellent images from photographers such as Andy Rouse, Daisy Gilardini, Stefano Untertheiner, David Tipling, Suzi Eszterhas and Elliott Neep. I'm very honoured to be included in such company.

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Tuesday 10 November 2015

Fly Agarics

I haven't done a great deal of photography lately but here are a few Fly Agaric images from late September.

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This first image was taken with the Venus Laowa 15mm wideangle macro lens:




... as was this image:




 Finally, I switched to my Sigma 150mm macro lens:






Wednesday 14 October 2015

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015

The winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition were announced yesterday. This is always an important day in the wildlife photography calendar and one I look forward to each year. The overall winner was a powerful image by Don Gutoski showing the brutal aftermath of a battle between a red fox and an Arctic fox. The winning and commended (now called 'finalist') images can be found here.


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'A Tale of Two Foxes' by Don Gutoski


I think 'A Tale of Two Foxes' is an excellent image. It is powerful, unusual, well composed (I like the symmetry of the foxes' heads) and tells a story. One can only imagine such encounters between red and Artic foxes will become more commonplace as climate change extends the range of the former into that of the latter.

In my view the competition features some inspirational images this year. There are a number that I particularly like but the following are some of my favourites:

'Shadow Walker' by Richard Peters 


 'Still Life' by Edwin Giesbers


'Battling the Storm' by Vincenzo Mazza - 
this image doesn't quite work for me until you spot the Whooper Swans on the water. 


'A Whale of a Mouthful' by Michael Aw


'Sea Eagle Snatch' by Auden Rikardsen 
(this formed a part of the portfio prize and Rikardsen's portfolio as a whole is very impressive)


...and there are several others that I really like too.

I was particularly keen to see the images in the Invertebrates category. Within this category I try to imagine which image I would have been most pleased to see on the back of my camera. By this yardstick, of the 4 winning and finalist images, my favourites would be 'Waiting for the Sun' (below) and 'Wings of Summer' by Klaus Tamm. These are the two images I would have been most keen to rush home and process had I taken them! I notice that this category only features 4 images - all other categories feature at least 5 I think. One can only assume that the judges felt that only 4 invertebrate images met the required quality standard which perhaps reflects a lack of submissions of invert images or just a general dearth of quality. Both are slightly troubling and suggest that the competition is still struggling to cast off its recent reputation for 'not really doing insects'. By comparison, the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards always features a much larger, and often higher quality, selection of insect images. Hopefully, the presence of the dedicated Invert category (introduced last year) will result in a greater number of high quality insect images being submitted to WPOTY.


'Waiting for the Sun' by Edwin Giesbers (again!)



Overall, I think the judges have done an excellent job this year. All decisions are of course highly subjective and one can never fully agree with all of them. But, this year's winners contain a number of highly original images featuring a wide selection of subject matter. The reduced emphasis on flagship species is very welcome.

However, I can't resist the urge to have a slightly mischievous moan. In my WPOTY blog post 2 years ago (here) I was critical of the number of similar images in recent years and I highlighted the 3 images below

WPOTY 2010 by Marcelo Krause


WPOTY 2012 by Luciano Candisani


WPOTY 2013 by Jordi Chias Pujol

all of which seemed to suggest that the judges couldn't resist side-on head shots of aquatic reptiles! As if to maintain this tradition, this year's competition contains the following image:


'Cuban Survivor' by Mirko Zanni

Individually, all of these are very nice images but given the presence of the previous images, I still struggle a little to understand how this latest image was deemed to be sufficiently original to see off competition from over 42,000 other images.

However, I shouldn't end on a negative note as I think this may have been one of the best WPOTY for several years. Well done to the winning photographers and to the judges too. 

Tuesday 13 October 2015

'New' Species

This summer the vast majority of my photography took place at a local nature reserve only 10 minutes from home. There were several reasons for this, the main one being that for some reason I particularly enjoy photographing my local wildlife. I will occasionally venture further afield but I like that to be the exception rather than the rule.

The downside of focusing so much attention on one local site year-after-year is that the insect species that appear at different times of the year become fairly predictable. This can encourage creativity as it forces me think how to photograph Common Blue butterflies or Four Spotted Chasers differently. But I don't normally expect to see 'new' species.

Imagine my surprise therefore to discover 2 new species of large insects at this site within the space of a couple of weeks this summer. The first discovery was this rather handsome Roesel's Bush Cricket found in early July in a patch of rough grass. This is a species that I'd never seen before, not only at this site but anywhere else either. In the UK its range has been expanding from the south east so it is possible that it is a fairly recent arrival at the site.


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Later in July, on the same patch of rough grass (while looking in vain for more Roesel's Bush Crickets) I found this female Long Winged Conehead. It is a nymph which is why it has short wings and the straight ovipositor distinguishes it from the Short Winged Conehead. Again this is a species that is gradually moving north in the UK and is now increasingly common in the midlands.







I can only hope that both of these species become established at this site.

Monday 14 September 2015

Success in British Wildlife Photography Awards 2015

I'm very pleased to have a Highly Commended image in the 'Hidden Britain' category of the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2015. The image is of a tiny Globular Springtail, just 2-3mm in size.


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Globular Springtail (Canon 60D with MP-E 65mm lens and MT-24 twin flash)



I've photographed Globular Springtails many times but on this particular occasion I wanted to achieve something a little different. I noticed that the wet leaves on my garden lawn (this was taken in winter) often contained Globular Springtails and by holding a wet leaf up and shooting into sunlight I was able to create unusual lighting effects. The use of flash added to this and also helped to darken the background thereby emphasising the light on the leaf and the springtail.

What particularly pleases me about this image being highly commended in the BWPA is the fact that it didn't require a long journey or a trip to a remote part of the UK. I simply walked into my back garden. Come to think of it, my highly commended image in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2010 was also photographed in my back garden.  I think this emphasises the often rich biodiversity that exists around us which often goes unnoticed.

Thursday 3 September 2015

Fungi Article in Outdoor Photography

Well, it's now September and the weather has turned decidedly autumnal so it will soon be time for me to start thinking about fungi photography. I'm also very pleased to have a short guide to fungi photography in the current ('autumn') issue of Outdoor Photography magazine.


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I particularly like the image on the cover of this issue taken by Mark Littlejohn







Wednesday 2 September 2015

Mullein Moth Caterpillars

Back in June and July a Buddleia bush in my garden hosted 4 Mullein Moth caterpillars. I watched them grow from tiny, thin caterpillars, no more than 15mm in length, to large, well-fed caterpillars that caught the eye immediately with their striking colours. 

For 2-3 weeks the caterpillars remained on the small bush and I checked on them most days to watch their progress. However, once they reached a good size I knew their days were numbered and sure enough they all disappeared within a couple of days of each other. Although I didn't see them do it, they will each have dug down into the soil to pupate. And what's more remarkable is that it will be several years before the adult moths emerge.

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Inevitably I took a few images of the caterpillars. First with my Tokina 10-17mm fisheye:



and secondly with my Tokina 35mm macro:


Thursday 13 August 2015

Venus Laowa 15mm f4 Wideangle Macro Lens Review

The Venus lens company  - a small Chinese lens manufacturer - recently launched a unique lens, the Laowa 15mm f4 wideangle macro. What is special about this lens is that it is a true macro lens capable of 1:1 or lifesize reproduction yet has a very short focal length and hence provides a very wideangle perspective. As far as I am aware, the next shortest focal length true macro lenses on the market are the Sony 30mm macro and the Tokina 35mm macro. Venus very kindly sent me a copy of their new lens to review and I have been putting it through its paces over the last 2-3 weeks. Here are my initial thoughts (I may well update this article over the coming weeks and months).

There is no doubt that this is an excellent lens that is capable of producing images that no other commercially available lens can produce. However, like all specialist lenses it is a challenging lens to use, particularly at higher magnifications.

The build quality is excellent and the lens feels reassuringly solid. However, it is manual focus only and, perhaps more importantly, there is no auto aperture control. What does this mean? It means that when you look through the viewfinder you look through the stopped down lens. Modern lenses normally allow you to look through the wide open lens when focussing and framing which provides a much brighter image. Instead the viewfinder becomes very dark when using, say, f16 or f22 on the Laowa 15mm. In addition, you cannot set the aperture via the camera but only via the lens.

The other challenge with this lens is the proximity of the subject to the lens at, or close to, 1:1 reproduction. At 1:1 the working distance is 5mm, yes that’s 5mm! This means that a very docile subject is needed as the lens will practically be touching it but it also means the lens will cast a shadow on the subject. Flash therefore becomes almost essential when using this lens at higher magnifications. So far, I have experimented with using a single diffused flash gun on a side bracket with the diffuser resting on the rim of the lens. If carefully positioned it can light the subject above and from one side but if not carefully positioned the flash head will creep into the field of view and/or will cause lens flare. I have recently received the Venus macro twin flash (KX800) and will provide my thoughts on that flash in due course. I haven’t been able to use my Canon MT-24EX twin flash with this lens as I am not able to attach the flash heads to the rim of this lens. It is possible to buy flexible arms which attach to the tripod screw on the base of the camera and each holds one of the MT-24’s flash heads, but this isn’t something I’ve tried.

Given the lack of working distance and the lighting difficulties described above you may well be wondering if the lens can really be used at or close to 1:1 reproduction. Well, it can as long as great care is taken, not only to find a docile subject and to carefully set up the flash but also to pay greater attention to the background. At higher magnifications the background loses detail even when the lens is stopped down. If the subject is surrounded by grass or foliage it may appear as an out of focus mess. However, if there is a more distant view in the background some of this landscape detail should still be discernible in the final image. There is less of a need to include distant landscape in the background at lower magnifications as more detail will be captured in nearby grass and foliage thereby still potentially providing a nice habitat image.

Nevertheless, here are a couple of images taken at, or very close to, 1:1 reproduction. Both images were taken with an APS-C sensor body and have not been cropped. The first is a Harlequin ladybird larva, approximately 8-10mm in length, on a leaf in my garden.

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The second image is of a Common Red Soldier Beetle, approximately 10mm in length.



In both images enough detail is retained in the background to show the subject in its environment, despite the high magnification.  However both images were tricky to take mainly due to the darkness of the subject (because of the stopped down viewfinder and because the lens was casting a shadow on the subject). As with most of my macro photography, I preset the manual focus and then move the lens (handheld) until the subject is in focus. But the darkness of the subject made this difficult. I’m hoping the modelling lamp from the KX800 twin flash will make this easier.

I have also taken a number of other images at lower magnifications which were generally more straightforward. Here is an early morning dew-covered Blue-Tailed Damselfly:



and a small Brown-Lipped Snail in its waterside habitat:



and finally a Small Skipper butterfly warming up in the early morning sun:



EDIT: see also this post for a selection of sample images taken with this lens.

As with all wide angle macro, I find images work better if there is some transition between the subject and the background. If there isn’t, and the subject is in sharp focus and the background is in soft focus, then the subject can look superimposed and somewhat artificial. This problem can also be exacerbated by the use of flash. Finding some habitat or foliage that links the subject’s perch and the background or even just ensuring that the not all of the perch is in sharp focus tends to alleviate this problem.

Finally, I’ve said little about image quality. Optically, the lens is excellent in my opinion. It is capable of taking very sharp images and, in my experience, any soft images are not the fault of the lens’ optics but stem from the difficulty in achieving precise focus due to the difficulties described above. There is a small degree of barrel distortion as you would expect from a 15mm lens. I have yet to experiment with the lens’ shift facility but this should help to correct perspective distortion in images of buildings etc. Chromatic aberration (purple fringing) is almost always present to some degree in wideangle lenses particularly at higher magnifications and particularly in high contrast areas (e.g. an insect’s dark antennae against a white sky). I don’t consider the chromatic aberration to be excessive and it can generally be corrected in post-processing.

In summary, the Laowa 15mm f4 wideangle macro lens is an excellent lens that can produce unique images. It is well made but the lack of auto aperture control and the minimal working distance at higher magnifications provide some challenges. However, with practice it is possible to produce interesting wideangle macro images of insects, flowers, fungi etc in their natural environment. The greater magnification of this lens gives it the edge over fisheye lenses, particularly for smaller subjects, and the 15mm focal length means it can provide a much wider field of view than the Tokina 35mm macro. The Laowa 15mm will therefore find a permanent place in my kit bag.

Other photographers' views of this lens:

Paul Harcourt Davis

Nicky Bay

Sunday 2 August 2015

Digital SLR Photography Magazine - Feature on Close-Up Photography

The latest (August) issue of Digital SLR Photography magazine has a large feature on close-up nature photography written by myself and Ross Hoddinott. Many magazine articles on macro/close-up photography tend to be rather brief but this is anything but - it is 12 pages in total and offers lots of hints, tips and example images (by myself and Ross) for a range of different styles of close-up photography.

Ross covers 'Essential Kit' for close-up photography, a section specifically on shooting butterflies and another section on pondlife. My sections cover wide-angle close-ups and the use of flash in close-ups.


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Friday 10 July 2015

Venus 15mm f4 Wideangle Macro Lens

[UPDATE: My initial review of this lens can now be found here ]

Venus optics, a Chinese lens manufacturer, has recently announced the production of a 15mm true macro lens i.e. capable of 1:1 or lifesize reproduction. Never before has such a wideangle true macro lens been produced so I am very interested in this lens. I'm very pleased to say that Venus are sending me a sample so that I can review and test it.

This post is therefore simply a 'heads up' that I will be reviewing this lens on this blog as soon as I am able to.

This weblink provides more details on this unique lens. Note that Venus sell this lens under their Laowa brand.


BBC Wildlife Magazine

I always enjoy seeing my images published in BBC Wildlife magazine. It's a magazine that I've been reading since I was a teenager and it remains the best publication of its kind on the market. I'm pleased to have an image of an emerging Four Spotted Chaser dragonfly gracing a page of the latest July issue.

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Monday 6 July 2015

BBC Countryfile Magazine

I'm pleased to have a 5 page article on close-up photography in the latest (July) issue of BBC Countryfile magazine. This is the third 'How to Take Winning Photos of...' article the magazine has featured in recent months to support the Countryfile photography competition. The other two articles were on the themes of wildlife photography (Chris Gomersall) and landscape photography (James Osmond).

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I even made the front cover (if you look very carefully in the top right hand corner!)









Friday 3 July 2015

Predator v. Prey

In my experience interesting wildlife and nature photographs are rarely handed to you on a plate. Instead they often require early alarm calls, lots of patience and a certain amount of discomfort in the form of traipsing through undergrowth or lying on your stomach in fields. However, just occasionally things work out a little differently.

One day last week I happened to be sitting on the floor in my house when what looked like a fly fell onto the carpet in front of me. Closer inspection revealed it to be two small flies and I initially assumed they were mating. However it soon became clear that actually one fly was attacking the other. My macro set-up is never too far away so I quickly grabbed it and managed a few photos of the tussle between the two flies.


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Predator v. Prey (Canon 7D with MP-E 65mm macro lens and
diffused MT-24 flash, f13, 1/160, ISO 100)



The above image shows the predator on the left biting into the other fly's 'neck' and inserting its feeding tube. It then effectively sucked the insides out of the fly for a minute or two before flying off and leaving the now hollow fly behind.

I've seen flies attacking and eating other flies many times before but normally the predator is noticeably larger than the prey. What strikes me as interesting in this image is that, if anything, the predator was slightly smaller than the prey.

For those interested in identification, the fly on the left has been identified as Coenosia species while the unfortunate victim is another Muscid fly of some sort.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

Macro Flash Diffusion (again)

This is a follow up post to my main macro flash diffusion page (here).

I am regularly asked about my macro flash set-up and have recently written a couple of magazine articles on this topic. During some recent experimentation I thought I would try to illustrate the power and importance of macro flash diffusion for those still unconvinced. The following example is far from perfect and I would have ideally used an example from the insect world such as a nice shiny ladybird. Unfortunately I've yet to find a shiny insect that will sit perfectly still while I fiddle around with diffusers only 5-10 cm away. So, the best I could come up with is a shiny laurel leaf covered in water droplets.



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The above shows a comparison between the 'naked' MT-24EX twin flash (top) and a diffused MT-24EX (bottom) diffused in the manner described in my other macro flash diffusion page (here) and as shown below:




Hopefully the comparison shot shows how useful diffusion is. Gone are the harsh highlights and extremes of light and shadow to be replaced by much more even tones. It is however possible to have too much diffusion which can result in images with insufficient contrast. So my aim is never to remove all highlights but just to ensure that the highlights aren't burnt out and that the contrast is reduced.


I have used the above diffusers for several years and have generally been happy with their performance. I have achieved slightly superior performance using a single sheet of plastic rather than the two domes but find this to be more cumbersome. The above therefore provides a nice balance between performance and practicality.

Until recently, no effective commercially available diffusers were available for the MT-24EX (as far as I am aware). As a result, most users of this twin flash unit constructed their own home-made diffusers as I did above. However, I recently became aware of an individual named Ian McConnachie who was producing diffusers for the MT-24 and selling them on Ebay. I duly bought a pair and have been testing them in recent weeks. The image below shows the diffusers attached to my MT-24EX and my MP-E 65mm macro lens.




 The diffusers require a certain amount of construction but this is well explained in this YouTube video. I also find the diffusers a little tricky to get on and off. But, they do a fairly good job of diffusing the flash, especially if you add an extra layer of kitchen towel over each individual flash head. Below I have made another quick comparison image, this time showing (1) no diffusion, (2) my original home-made diffusion and (3) Ian McConnachie's diffusers. Please excuse the fact that the focal point moved slightly in image 2.



I still think my home-made diffusers are my preferred choice but Ian McConnachie's are not too far behind. They are certainly the best commercially available option for the MT-24EX.

Note that to purchase these diffusers on ebay you need to search for 'MT24 diffusers' or look for listings by user 'redstag101'. I notice that he doesn't always have them for sale but would hope that some will be listed soon if none are currently available.