Morning magic

The last few days of my holiday I got up at 5 o'clock to be in the forest shortly after dawn. On some days there were fog banks when the night sky had been clear. But also with cloudy mornings I had the best time. It's always worth it to get up early. 

This is bulbous rush, growing near the fens on the heath. It has been very dry and warm the last few weeks and the fens are becoming smaller. You can walk to the parts that are normally under water and I love what I found there! All pictures in this post were taken with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 with apertures F1.6, 2.0 and 2.8 to see the glow.

While I was on the ground, in the wet moss, this little guy jumped in front of me. It sat in the perfect spot. These are the little presents you get for just being there. Today I heard them croak. It was the sweetest sound.

I discovered that the rush is going to flower. Then they are even more beautiful.

This little bee suddenly appeared as if it just woke up. It stayed on the leaf and if you look closely you can see its tongue. Either it was licking the leaf or it was sticking it out to me.

Had to give the sundew another go. I name this picture: Yang and Yin, or Happy and Dopey. Today I am Happy, often Dopey ;)

A grasshopper who also revealed himself by jumping away.

This morning I went to a different fen and the light there was so beautiful. The sun did not touch this part yet although it was coming closer. The light was soft and bright. I always shoot out of hand and make a lot of pictures because many are out of focus. A tripod would not have helped me anyway because I was standing close to the water on a thick layer of peat moss. It felt like a thick jumping mattress. This, to me, is a happy accident. I love the effect.

Same but different. A bubbly damselfly!

Damselfies are quite small and they live dangerously. This one thinks I am his big enemy, but does not see what's behind!

A little spider with an inviting web. Ready for breakfast. And you can be it!

After all this I went again to the wet peat moss. Wonderfully cool, because even though I was wearing a full rain suit, my feet were soaked. The light was already very bright and finding the balance was difficult. I like this one.

My plan was to sleep in tomorrow, but this morning was such a joy again that I might go one more time. After that it's back to work and it is going to be unusually hot!

Sundew

Small sundew (Drosera intermedia) grows near fens on heathlands and we have quite a few of those in Drenthe. On the heathland I usually go to, I found very small plants but they were completely flooded a week later (hard to imagine with the current drought). It was my luck that I found another spot. The plants there are so beautiful and also large! And large is relative.

Sundew grows on poor soil and survives by catching flies and other insects. The leaves contain hairs with sticky drops. When an insect is trapped the leaf rolls up. Dead flies are not very pretty and I prefer to photograph around them. The buds in the middle are emerging flowers.

The leaves of sundew are very small and these were captured with a Lensbaby Velvet 56 with Kenko extension tubes (all of them: 12 + 20 + 36 mm). What I like about the Velvet is the glow you get with apertures from 1.6 to 4.0. and the soap bubble bokeh before the focal plane. I took all of these out of hand by resting my hands on the ground. Even with all the tubes, the shutter times were most of the time higher than 1/200 s at ISO 400. 

These pictures were made with apertures from F 1.6 to F 4.0. Because of the extensions, the depth of field is very shallow. When you move the camera millimeters forwards and backwards - you can see the bokeh change. 

Sundew grows on peat moss, the yellow fluffy part of the picture. I love drops and when they are not there, this is the next best thing. I always found these plants difficult to capture with my 100 mm macro lens, but with the Velvet 56 with extension tubes it is possible to zoom in to a few leaves. I should really try it again with my old macro lens and the tubes. 

These must have caught something, they are starting to curl. 

There is a little young cicade resting on the stem and seemingly unaware of the danger. Or maybe it is protected this way? If you look closely you can see that there are not only drops at the tip of the hairs but that there are also teeny tiny ones along the hairs. 

It's all about the bokeh for me. The light was soft on the days I made pictures there. I should go back  again when there is sun because the bokeh rings are sharper then - like in the third picture were the light became a little bit brighter for just a moment. It immediately shows. 

And this picture makes me smile because it reminds me of a woman with a perm, like my mother had. 

I will probably try once more and bring my normal 100 mm macro lens. Never know if I get this chance again next year. 

A Velvet summer

For a long time I only had one lens, a beautiful 100 mm Canon macro lens. Now I have a whole collection of Lensbaby lenses and am spoilt for choice. But there is always a favorite! For me that's the one that gives me the most surprises and turns my passion into an obsession. At the moment that is the Velvet 56.

I bought the Velvet 56 a year ago and did not use it very often, mostly because I got frustrated with it and because at that time the Twist 60 was my favorite :). Then I found this picture back on my computer. I was probably focussing on the wet grass when this popped up in front of me and so I captured it. Crane flies are not particularly beautiful creatures, but the glow on its wings turned this one into something magical.

The Velvet 56 has a macro setting (1:2). It's special feature is that with apertures between F 1.6 - F 4.0 the brighter parts in the pictures seem to glow. This put me off in the beginning, but it is a matter of finding the right light to make the most of this. I love anything with drops. And this web was taken probably at F2.8. The spider suddenly moved towards me, pulling parts of the web. Fortunately focus is just right. I love the glow here.

Another effect I love very much is the circular bokeh in front of the focal plane. Behind the focal plane you will see the shape of the aperture (nine blades), but only if you make pictures like this - with clear bokeh and backlight. I am a bokeh addict and almost always work with backlight. I think that his is the way I see things. Wet grass will sparkle in the sunlight, but only in a certain direction. When you get closer the sparkle seems to disappear, but just put your camera in front of it and look. Bokeh everywhere!

Another surprise was the the quality of this picture. I was lucky I found this four spotted chaser. It could not fly (yet) but in hindsight maybe because its wings are abnormal. There are no drops here and still it's beautiful ;)

Last year I bought a set of extension tubes (Kenko, 12, 20 and 36 mm). They can be used separately or stacked and go between the camera and the lens. The effect is that you end up with a (more) macro lens. The minimal focus distance decreases and so does the depth of field. For this grass with drops I added only one ring (probably 20 mm, not sure). The drops closer to the camera are now more out of focus and therefore the rings become bigger. They are well defined due to the bright light. The focus is on the little spider's web in the grass.

I love early mornings after nights with cold clear skies when everything is covered in dewdrops. However, on cloudy days raindrops are also beautiful subjects. These drops were very small so I used all extension tubes. I love the softness (F 4).

My goal for the summer was to make a picture similar to the crane fly, but with damselflies or dragonflies. I am still hunting for what I had in mind. Somehow there seem to be less dragonflies and damselflies than last year, or is it just me? Fortunately I found this dragonlfy hanging in the shade in a dead birch tree. The original is landscape format, so it is cropped quite heavily.

I also found the damselflies, still wet in the early morning light (F 2.8).

And this was probably also F2.8 but the sunlight was coming closer. The settings are not preserved with these manual lenses. I never went beyond F 4.0 and only at F 2.8 and lower the glow becomes increasingly visible.

This is a very simple image but I so like the soft glow on the drops. I still have a lot of pictures in mind for all the spider's webs on this field. Probably F2.8 on a day with cloudy skies.

And the last one is taken at home. I collected the seeds of goat's beard. They are fun to play with and with a spray bottle even more so :). I think all extension tubes were added for this picture.

I also made many pictures of sundew (Drosera intermedia) and will make a separate post about them.

What I have learned so far about the Velvet 56 is that light is everything, as always. Whatever is bright in the picture will glow with the wider apertures. You can adjust the amount of glow by using wider or smaller apertures. At F 5.6 the glow is gone. With extension tubes it is possible to capture tiny details, and still the shutter times are not very slow (and I never go beyond ISO 400). I almost never use a tripod because it cramps my style and I hate using it. To be fair, a lot of my subjects are on the ground so I steady my hands, and sometimes even the lens, on the ground. The damselflies were a challenge because I could not rest my hands anywhere and so I did bring my tripod. But in the end I only used is to steady my hands :)

I still have lots of plans with this lens so I jump (crawl more like) out of bed every morning at 5 o' clock. Unfortunately this morning on my way to the field an alarm light went up in my car. So now it's in the garage (fingers crossed). It was high time I wrote something anyway!