Dawid Loubser
Member
Last year, my better half and I planted a small Magnolia tree, and to our great delight, we saw it busy preparing a single flower bud some weeks ago. On Sunday, it finally opened, after weeks of "preparation" by the tree. A single, large jewel - for the insects.
I went though some trouble setting up everything to capture the opening moment as a time-lapse sequence, but to my great annoyance and embarrassment that little project failed because I forgot to plug in the power supply of the laptop controlling the camera! (I got up at 05:30 AM, set everything up, and went back to sleep... to discover later that image capture had stopped moments before the magic moment! ARGH!)
The flower lasted a mere two days, and the tree will not bloom again for at least another year. But what a magnificent flower! About the size of my two spread hands, and with an intoxicating smell. The bees acted as if they were on drugs, and seemed to have completely lost themselves to this flower - at least I could alleviate my earlier disappointment by capturing them in this magnificent micro-environment.
I post here two with which I am particularly happy, and I would appreciate any comments on my technique. Both taken with Canon EF 100mm Macro, and MR-14EX ring flash. Shot on full manual, and the light was very good, so the flash acted more as fill flash. Both at f/16 to get as much DOF as possible, whilst still remaining reasonably sharp. Hand-held, 1/250s.
"Joy of the Magnolia: Part 1"
"Joy of the Magnolia: Part 2"
I went though some trouble setting up everything to capture the opening moment as a time-lapse sequence, but to my great annoyance and embarrassment that little project failed because I forgot to plug in the power supply of the laptop controlling the camera! (I got up at 05:30 AM, set everything up, and went back to sleep... to discover later that image capture had stopped moments before the magic moment! ARGH!)
The flower lasted a mere two days, and the tree will not bloom again for at least another year. But what a magnificent flower! About the size of my two spread hands, and with an intoxicating smell. The bees acted as if they were on drugs, and seemed to have completely lost themselves to this flower - at least I could alleviate my earlier disappointment by capturing them in this magnificent micro-environment.
I post here two with which I am particularly happy, and I would appreciate any comments on my technique. Both taken with Canon EF 100mm Macro, and MR-14EX ring flash. Shot on full manual, and the light was very good, so the flash acted more as fill flash. Both at f/16 to get as much DOF as possible, whilst still remaining reasonably sharp. Hand-held, 1/250s.
"Joy of the Magnolia: Part 1"
"Joy of the Magnolia: Part 2"
