Backyard Photos – AKA – Home Schooled

[Neal Osborn]

Weekend lessons – (Labor Day)

Long story short – I spent the weekend taking pictures, deleting pictures, reading, pictures-read-delete, repete, ha. This was a self enrolled home school boot camp to get up the learning curve on outdoor photography. Below are a few shots I took on Saturday afternoon with clear skies and bright sun.  The results were pretty disappointing despite trying every exposure compensation technique at my knowledge level.  However, After getting a bit of advice I headed back out in the morning with overcast skies and used the little SB-200 flashes off camera with diffusers and pointed the flash at the ground and bounced the light up to the subject.  The results were much better and although not perfect by any means I now have a more solid foundation for taking ground shots of small subjects in the woods.  I would love to hear your thoughts on how you would approach these shots (mushrooms are a particular interest to me).

Examples of what not to do!!! Bright light, poor composition, poor exposure, much swearing/cursing.

What I learned – Shoot in the morning with overcast sky and use flash with a macro lens.

I loved this grouping and wanted to capture a close-up with a feel like Lord of the Rings Hobbit garden – lush yet rich and slightly dark with interesting shadows.  First attempt in bright light was no good.

I went back later with overcast sky and used the flash setup as discussed above.  Much better but the colors were off.

Then a bit of photoshop post-processing.  Pretty much what I was after but still not perfect.  Any suggestions on how to get a better exposure?  Composition? I think the main problem is my lens – I used my standard 18-200VR – the 60mm would have been better.

Magnolia flower – Macro lens with the R1C1 set up on the lens

Bugs

I figured out (after a ton of shots and lots of swearing) that it is much better to shoot bugs with a dark background.  It’s also difficult to shoot spiders since the cobweb moves ever so slightly in the wind thus creating challenges with exposure.  

Spider (size of a pinhead) with a white background vs simply moving in closer and angling the shot to get a dark background.

Any good advice on shooting insects out in the woods?  Just some general comments per se since many of you have already posted great threads on photographing aquatic insects.  I am interested in how to approach a quick shot of a beetle or spider or something.

[Ben Cochran]

You do know that it is but a small bit of steps before the neighbors get concerned about this man crawling on the ground taking pictures of mushrooms through out the neighborhood. Bet they figure it is just a matter of time before he has a guitar strapped to his back and drives a psychedelic VW van with flowers painted on it LOL. But hey, I think it is groovy  😎

Nice shots in the mix! One thing that I might add, morning, evening and cloudy days are great for defused light but remember that the morning sun and evening sun create the new challenge of WB and hue matching for you, don’t forget to use the gels. Also, some great shroom shots can be created at night.

Love the last spider shot, I love the dark side myself and would be happy if I could do it all of the time. Depending on the insect, darker backgrounds are good as they can add a bit of creepy mystery to the image. Come on over to the dark side my friend, we have plenty of room for you  😉

Keep up the great work!!!

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