Working on the Pipevine

 A few days ago, the weather was fine and I had decided to play hooky from my job. Don't worry, I requested the time  I grabbed by camera gear and set out for nearby Coopers Rock State Forest.  Out near the trout pond, I came across a beautiful butterfly that I managed to shoot with my telephoto lens:

Meet the Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor).  

The angle of this shot must have been just right, because the blue iridescence isn't always apparent, as noted in the following shot:

Same butterfly at a different angle.

The name of this butterfly got me curious.   Pipevine Swallowtails aren't all that common around here, and what is it with the name "pipevine" you ask?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

After a bit of Googling, I came across this site Butterfly Garden and Habitat Program, which gave a bit of background on the history of the pipevine in American horticulture.  It explained that the pipevine is the sole food of the Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar. It turns out, however, that the pipevine genus, Aristolochia, has more than 500 species.  But there is only one native American species upon which the Pipevine caterpillar will dine: Aristolochia macrophylla.

These day, my go-to for natural science is iNaturalist.  Here is what they have to say about Aristolochia macrophylla.   Now one of the neat things about iNaturalist links is that the page for a specific species has links to a map, which shows the locations where something specific like Aristolochia macrophylla.  have been found.  Zooming in on the North American continent and down to West Virginia, we find many sightings.  Some of the local sightings are at the West Virginia Botanic Garden  along the Access Road Trail.  Sadly, there is only one other sighting, and that is along the Mon Chateau Trail from Coopers Rock.  My goal is to go back to the trout pond and see if I can spot the wiley Aristolochia macrophylla near where I took my photos.

 

I found a few more interesting links, among which are

• Missouri Botanical Garden
• The Aristolochia page in Wikipedia, where *ahem*, you might see a very suggestive picture and link to the  Aristolochia labiata. 

 

Fern, Interrupted

 On my hike around Coopers Rock state park last weekend, I came across some interesting looking ferns.  They had typical green fronds, top and bottom, but the middle was taken up by a dark green band of spores.

I've identified it as an Interrupted Fern (Claytosmunda claytoniana).  According to Wikipedia, 

The Claytosmunda genus has only one species, Claytosmunda claytoniana .  The interrupted fern is native to Eastern Asia, Eastern United States, and Eastern Canada.

Fragmentary foliage resembling Claytosmunda claytoniana has been found in the fossil record as far back as the Triassic.   C. claytoniana is a paramount example of evolutionary stasis. Paleontological evidence indicates it has remained unchanged, even at the level of fossilized nuclei and chromosomes, for at least 180 million years.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the picture, itself.  I had a bear of a time capturing a decent image.  I was trying to take a hand-held shot in somewhat low light, and a slight breeze gave the image even more shake.

I wanted decent depth of field with my macro lens, so I tried to shoot at f/18.  This was one of those rare times when I changed the ISO to 3200.  I was able to use a shutter speed of 1/100 sec.

You can well imagine the amount of "noise" in the original picture.  This was one of those time that I appreciated the image editing software from Topaz Labs.  This was definitely a job for DeNoise AI.   I followed up that process with Sharpen AI.  The results up above really speak for themselves.

Here's what it looked like before the DeNoise and Sharpen:

Getting Creative

 I've been exploring a little bit more of  the bells and whistles on my Canon 77D.  With few exceptions, I've been pretty muck locked into using the camera's Aperture Priority (Av) mode.  Recently, I've tried shooting something with the Creative filters.

Here are some of the filter effects that you can use:

• Grainy B/W 
• Soft focus 
• Fish-eye - processed to simulate fish-eye lens shots
• Water painting - for images that look like water paintings
• Toy camera - simulates distinctive colors and vignetting of images from toy cameras
• Miniature - process to resemble miniature scale models, similar to tilt-shifting
•  HDR art standard - images resemble paintings with low contrast and flat gradation
•  HDR art vivid - images resemble vivid graphic art with flat gradation
• HDR art bold - images resemble oil paintings with vivid color and depth
• HDR art embossed - images resemble old, faded photos

Yesterday during my lunch break I tried the fish-eye effect on some daffodils.  Here's the result:

I'm going to have to try some of the other effects.   Since I rarely carry my LensBaby  Composer around, I can see where these creative filters will give it some real competition.

Repairing the focus on an SX-70

 First a little background.  Back in the summer of 2019, someone gave me a very unusual Polaroid SX-70 that was customized for scientific photography.  Later, in September, I removed the customization hardware and gave the camera a new skin.  

I then discovered that there was a problem with focus-to-infinity with this camera.   You can see the problem with one of the shots that I posted on my Flickr account.  Out to infinity, there has consistently been a bit of lens blur.

This brings me to a couple of weeks ago, when I searched for some repair solutions.  Flickr came to my rescue with some basic instructions.  All I had to do was remove the front housing rectangle around the lens opening.  I was able to pry it off quite easily.  Then I ran the focus out to infinity, where I could easily see the blur in the split screen focus.  I depressed the "idler wheel" as described and with a very slight turn of the gear, I was able to regain the focus-to-infinity.

Although I have a fresh pack of film, I'm waiting until Spring, when there will be much more to photograph in color.   I'm confident that I'll be able to achieve decent focus this time around.

A Pelican (can hold much more than my belly can)

 I had no serious intentions when I was browsing on eBay a couple of week ago.  Someone was selling a large number of  used cases for $50 each.  The Pelican 1520 Protector is a nice-sized case for my camera equipment. A new one is in the $150 range.  In order to add my own equipment to this case, however, I needed to by a new foam insert.  For $23, I was able to get Pick and Pluck Foam for a Pelican 1520 case on Amazon.

This all turned out to be a sweet deal.  I have room for a little bit more, but I'm taking my time to decide on the final slot.

From the top, circling clockwise:

• 50mm f/1.4 primary
• EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro 
• 70-200f/4 L telephoto
• EF-S 18-55 IS 
• Canon D77 camera with EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM "pancake"
• Canon Speedlite 580EX flash

I'm thinking of cutting a hole out for my LensBaby, but I'm going to let that thought marinate.  On the plus side, it would give me something with tilt-shift and fisheye capability.  On the other hand, I'd like to be able to store a few specialty filters, too.

A new year and a new lens

 I got an early birthday present of a Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM "pancake" lens.  A co-worker had gotten one a few years back and I've admired it since.   It's small, lightweight and has a low profile, making it easy to carry around.

A Ken Rockwell review of this lens gives it good marks.  He summarizes that

The optics of this lens are superb, and its size make it a complete winner. For $150, you can't go wrong.

He's right.   

As a side benefit, the lens is classified as a Macro, but I haven't really taken much advantage of that at this point.  I ought to work dandy with a lens extension tube.

So, here's the moment of truth.  One of my first shots with this lens:

 

It's the back of Woodburn Hall on WVU's main campus.  This is an uncropped hand-held shot, but I did apply lens correction in PhotoShop.  I also ran it through Topaz Labs' DeNoise AI.   For the B&W, I ran this through one of Tim Shields' Lightroom Presets (Cold Tone).  

A New Old Lens

 I while back, I managed to score a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens on ShopGoodwill.com. As always, a Goodwill auction purchase is "as is."  Turned out that both automatic and manual focus on the lens would not go below four meters.  There has apparently been a long-standing problem of this sort with that lens.  It has a part with a design flaw that makes it very easy to damage. A repair company was able to replace the flawed part with a redesigned one that isn't as easy to damage.  It wasn't a cheap repair, but it's not a cheap lens, either.  Of course, the lens also got a thorough cleaning as part of the repair.

Although I already own a couple of 50mm f/1.4 lenses, they are both vintage, manual focus lenses.  Perhaps because of that, I hadn't been as attuned to their superior light gathering properties. Since this new one is made to work on a Canon digital SLR, I can more easily appreciate the superior optics.  Foremost is that the lens can work really well in low light and natural situations.

Another great feature of the 50 is the focal range.  It's great for portraiture because it give a nice blur to the background.

Here's one of the best shots I've taken with this newly repaired lens:

This is a great spangled fritillary butterfly on an iron weed. I shot it with the lens wide open at f/1.4, where it is said to be "soft."  Note the dreamy background, which is the woods behind the flower.  If I want sharper pictures, I'll need to stop it down to at least f/2.0.

Despite this newer, easy-to-use lens, I'm going to find it difficult to part with my Konica 50mm manual lens. I'd love to compare the image quality side-by-side with these two lenses.  Perhaps another day.

Getting the Bugs Out

 Ever since I got a replacement for my old Sigma EM-140 ring flash (it's an older model and it doesn't flash on my EOS D77), I've been back to shooting macros out of doors.  The cheap replacement for the Sigma ring is a "KF150 TTL Marco (Sic) Ring Flash," which seems to be doing a decent job.

But what I really want to write about is a site that I recently stumbled across.  It's called iNaturalist. According to a Wikipedia description, 

iNaturalist is a citizen science project and online social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe.

I've joined iNaturalist and have posted a number of my recent shot to the site, along with my tentative classifications.  Boy, what a humbling experience.  My identifications have been largely challenged by the experts, and I have little to doubt their authority as to the correct species.

I had labelled this a a Dog Day Cicada (Neotibicen canicularis):

However, it turns out that it's really a Common Swamp Cicada (Neotibicen tibicen).  To my delight, this photo has been flagged as a "research grade."

One other earned that classification.  I'd originally identified this as a Modest Masked Bee (Hylaeus modestus), but that has been corrected to be an Eastern Masked Bee (Hylaeus affinis).  At least I've been getting the genus right.

In my defense, if you look at a picture of a Modest Masked Bee, it looks identical to this. The telltale distinction, according the the expert, is the presence of a yellow spot on the tegulae.

Just for grins, here's one that I took with my Canon EF70-200 telephoto:

It's tentatively identified as a Robber Fly (Efferia aestuans).  Let's hope that I got this one right.

To date, I've submitted six insects and one plant to iNaturalist.  I'm hoping that I can contribute many more.

Bee-Grade Photography

 I stepped outside yesterday on my lunch break to photograph some insects near the side of the house.  A mint plant was blooming, and I caught a couple of bees that gave me a real challenge at identification.  I got a lot of help from Sharp-Eatman Nature Photography's web site.  If you visit this site, do click on the Gallery, which contains some fantastic nature shots.

The first bee that I photographed is called a Masked Bee.  It's a tiny creature, only about 5 mm:

It belongs to the genus Hylaeus.  An interesting thing about this genus is that they don't carry pollen in the usual pollen basket.  Instead, they carry pollen in their crop and then regurgitate it into the cell where it will be used as food for the larva.

This second bee was much harder for me to identify.

Best guess is that this belongs to the genus Nomada.  They are kleptoparasitic or "cuckoo bees." which enter the nests of hosts and lay eggs there. The larvae steal the resources that the host has already collected.

Ruby Sunset

It's often said that "the best camera is the one that you have on you."

Opinions differ somewhat as to the meaning of this.  For some, it means that any old camera that you have with you is better than none.  For others, myself included, it means that should a potentially good image present itself, you shouldn't be afraid to use what you have on you. Be it a phone or a point 'n shoot, don't pass up a great shot because you don't have your big fancy camera on you.

Wednesday evening was such an occasion.  I had just gotten out from an appointment, and I was struck by the most awesome sky.   "Red sky at night, sailor's delight."   What made this more delightful was the way that the setting sun illuminated a gap between two buildings -- Ruby Memorial Hospital and the WVU Health Sciences building.  The light reflected off of the windows on Ruby, creating an impressive arrangement of leading lines.

Could this shot have been better?  Certainly, if I'd had my Cannon 77D and one of my better lenses, I could have improved on the exposure.  But all I had was my iPhone Xs, and that's what I used.  And as for composition, I couldn't do anything about the white picket fence, which leads the eye away from the other lines.  It's a feature we'll all have to live with.

On a positive note, there was very little lens distortion in this shot, as you can see from the relatively straight vertical lines.  The electric lights are somewhat overexposed but not glaringly so (no pun intended).

Given the technical deficiencies of an iPhone picture, another school of thought would have me concentrate on the artistic nature of the shot.  Yes, I dare to say there is some of that.   So, not to leave well enough alone, I tried simplifying the photo using the BuzzSim filter from Topaz Studio. I saw this mainly as an attempt to smooth over the JPEG "noise" of the original.

Each shot has its merits.  I'll let you be the judge as to which you like better.

Up, Up and Away

It's been a busy week for me and my camera.   Last Saturday, it was Bridge Day and last night it was "night glow" for the Balloon Festival.  Night glow is what they call it when a bunch of hot air balloons fill up at night and light up on the ground.

This year it was at the Morgantown Mall.  I arrived early to catch a decent parking place and some dinner.  The night glow area was roped off between the old Sears (now, temporarily a Halloween store) and Lowes,

Some people started filling up while it was still daylight.  Here's one of them -- a very cool cat.

Once it got dark, they turned off the lights in the parking lot and let the visitors mill around amongst the balloons.  I really like to photograph the red balloon.  Here's a nice view of a number of balloons lined up and lit.  It was a lot like trying to photograph fireflies.   They all lit up and blinked independent of one another.  I had a few lucky shot where I caught several lighting up at a time.

Saving my favorite for last. The flames on these are overexposed, but it's still a nice shot.  I touched it up a little bit with Topaz Studio.

Bridge Day 2019

On Saturday, October 19, I drove down to the Bridge Day festival near Fayetteville, W.Va.  The festival is one time of the year when the New River Bridge is closed to vehicular traffic, allowing an assortment of base jumpers and rappellers to do their thing, while a massive throng of spectators crowd themselves along the bridge.   Vendors hawk their wares on either end of the bridge.

The sky quickly clouded over by the time I arrived late in the morning.  Still, the view from the bridge is quite spectacular.   The New River gorge, below the bridge is part of a national park.

It was a struggle to work my way through the mass of people to get myself close enough to get pictures of some of the jumpers.   I had to practically hang from the bridge railing to get some of these shots:

There is a visitors center on the north side of the bridge, which gives a different view of the activities.  Check out all of the rappelling lines.   There are four rappellers in this shot, along with one base jumper who is just starting to deploy their parachute.

Morning Woods

On Friday, August 30, I was hiking back up from the Iron Furnace at Cooper's Rock State Park.  Off the side of the trail, my eye did see something a bit unusual.

It appears that a branch or another tree altogether was growing out from a crack in the main trunk and reentering about a foot or two up above.

If you believe in pareidolia and your mind is in the gutter, you may see something of a different nature.

Y.A. SX-70

Yet another SX-70.

I acquired this in the nicest of ways.  A co-worker, who knows I am into old cameras, asked me if I could give this unusual looking Polaroid a good home.  It came from an old nearby industrial facility that is being torn down.  As you can see, this isn't your mother's SX-70.   It has been customized for scientific photography or perhaps quality control.  The entire addition is of a sturdy metal construction.

The addition on the front says it's from Technical Enterprises of Gainesvill, Florida.  There must have been a bunch of these produced at some point, because it features a model and serial number.  The lens assembly on the front looks like it's configured to attach to another tube, such as a microscope.  There's a remote shutter control attached.

I didn't know if this camera was any good.  It was frozen into an open position, and I could not collapse it down.   Looking through the view finder, all I could see was blackness.  I carefully removed all the Technical Enterprises hardware and discovered an Alpha 1, Model 2.   

Lo and behold, I can now see through the viewfinder, and I can close down the camera.  This one has lugs for a carrying strap and a socket for a tripod mount -- something my older model is lacking.   I looked up the serial number and I found that this one is three years younger than my first SX-70.

Serial Number :	5J825789173
Config :	Alpha 2 Electronics & Alpha 'K' Focus Wheel
Model :	Model 2, SE, Sears or Alpha 2
Birthday :	Sep 25, 1978

Cosmetically, the leather trim is cracked in places, and it's considerably worn around the tripod mount area.   I'm thinking of plopping down $20 for laser cut replacement skin that I found on Etsy.

I'm now running a pack of Polaroid Originals color SX-70 film through it and the results so far are quite good.  Better, I dare say, than my Model 1.   I shot this Polaroid of the nearby Marriott:

The one problem that I've found so far is that the focus stops a bit short of infinity.  Until/unless I can fix this, there won't be many landscape shots in its future.

I will be giving this camera a good home.

Edit:  see the update here.

Polaroid SX-70 Shots

Previously, I mentioned that I got an old circa '75 vintage Polaroid SX-70.  I've taken a few shot with it, and I wish I could be more impressed.   I was hoping for more bright colors, but as you can see, this isn't Kodachrome.  This is what you get with Polaroids.

This is the first shot that I took, which I had posted previously via iPhone capture.  The car is silver and the siding of the house should be like a light chocolate milk color.  You can notice one good thing, however, there is very little lens distortionin the front and back lines of the house in the background.  

This is Morgantown shot from the sixth floor of One Waterfront Place.  Despite the cloud cover, I thought that it should have been an adequately bright day for this landscape shot.

I'd held out the most hope for this last picture of some yellow lilies growing in a flower bed alongside of One Waterfront Place.  This was taken in very bright sunlight.  So bright, that the flower petals are almost over exposed.  Orange day lilies in the background are orange, and the green foliage lacks saturation.

I'm not deterred.  On the positive side, the pictures definitely have a vintage quality to them. 

I can think of a couple of things that might be done differently.   First of all, these shots were ejected from the camera in very bright conditions.  I tried to put the undeveloped film into a dark box as quickly as I could, but there could have been enough exposure to mess up the saturation.   The solution might be to get a film shield.

Another factor that I can think of would be the film itself.  With a little bit of modification, I could use a newer Color 600 Film.  It has a much higher ISO value, which consequently captures much more light.

Polaroid SX-70

I scored another great buy on ShopGoodwill.com last week.   Meet the latest addition to my camera  family, the Polaroid SX-70:

As you can see from the picture, it's in good cosmetic shape.   Even more importantly, though -- and this is the risk you take with Goodwill auctions -- it seems to function perfectly.  And something that you probably didn't know:  this SLR camera had a  4-element 116mm F/8 lens.

According to a serial number calculator that I found online, my model came from about the third year of production.

Serial Number :	0J501905064
Config :	Hybrid Shutter
Model :	Model 1 or Alpha 1
Birthday :	Sep 22, 1975

The lack of a tripod mount and strap connectors means that this is a Model 1.  It has the old split-lens viewfinder that I really love.

The shot below is not exactly a faithful scan -- it's just an iPhone picture:

Also on display is the package of SX-70 color film that I bought from Amazon.  It's 160 ASA film and I've read that you really should use it out of doors in bright sunlight.  It does have a mount for now-obsolete flash bars, but I don't even want to go there right now.

I've had (much) less than stellar results with previous Polaroid films.  I have a couple of Polaroid Spectras, and I ran a couple of packages of Spectra film made by the Impossible Project.  Most of the shots were crappy.  I suspect that it had a lot  to do with the age of the film, however.

The Impossible Project has recently given way to Polaroid Originals, and the improvement in production quality appears to be substantial.   Of course, I'm basing all of this on my one test shot.  Really, though, my opinion is shared by many other people on the net.

The future brings more experimentation with this camera.  I've read that with a minor adjustment and the addition of a neutral density filter you can run the faster and more easily available Polaroid 600 film through it.   Now that I know this camera works, I feel safe in trying that out.

More from the "new" old lens

Back on March 29, I raved about the Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f/1.4 lens that I won on a ShopGoodwill.com auction. 

I've been using this lens a lot more than I thought I would, getting better at snapping pictures by manually adjusting the ISO, aperture and film speed.

Here's a little gallery of some of my favorite shots:

As you can see, this lens has been performing quite well with close-ups, rendering some pleasing bokeh.

My next challenge is to get better at shooting this lens wide open at f/1.4.

Pink Ladyslippers

I was looking forward to this time of year (mid-May) because it's when Pink Lady's Slippers orchids (Cypripedium acaule) first make their appearance in our forests.

According to their Wikipedia article, they are widespread in Canada and the eastern third of the United States.  Even so, I'd never encountered one until moving to West Virginia.

The following shots were all taken last weekend at Cooper's Rock state forest.  All were taken with a Canon 77D and a vintage Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens.  In other words, manual settings and manual focusing.

Lady's slippers usually appear in colonies.  They are said to prefer pine forests, but I have only seen them in deciduous woods. Lady's slippers have a symbiotic association with a particular fungus.  It was thought that the fungus was necessary to provide the plant with nutrients, but recent research indicates that the fungus is only necessary for seed germination.

Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro

Some time back, I bought an old Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens from ShopGoodWill.com.  I've come to like this lens a great deal.  Here's a shot of it mounted on a Fotodiox Pro adapter (the blue ring) for Canon EF.

Because of the FD to EF adapter, you need to manually focus this lens, as well as set the proper f-stop.

Once I determined that the light meter in the camera was unreliable for setting these, I've become adept at using the Lux Professional Light Meter app for iOS.  This is a great app, by the way.  It lets you determine readings based on ISO, f-stop and shutter speed.

Here are a few of the recent pictures that I've taken recently with this lens:

Reviews that I've read about this lens say that it also makes a pretty decent prime lens for regular photography as well as macro.   I haven't tried it for this yet.

I got this lens very cheaply with the idea that I would play around with it for a while and then sell it on eBay.  Now I'm thinking that this is something that I'd rather hang on to.

Camera control via WiFi

My newest DSLR is a Canon 77D that I got for my birthday.  Among its many awesome features it has built in WiFi with NFC to allow connection to a mobile device.

The other day, I tried a new technique where I used the Canon EOS Utility to make a wireless tether connection between a laptop and the camera.  With the EOS Utility, I was able to set the camera on a tripod at ground level and take a series of shots at different focal lengths.  Here's the result of my first attempt:

This was created from a 9-shot focus stack.

I used to be able to do this sort of thing using MagicLantern on my EOS T2i, but there's no current support for it on the 77D.  With the EOS Utility, I can control the focus from my laptop in increments.  While not automatic like MagicLantern, I do get to see what the camera is seeing on the screen of my laptop.  The software even allows for 5X zoom to make fine focus even easier.

I had been able to do some of this previously using the Canon Camera Connect app on my iPhone or iPad but the focus control wasn't as easy for me.  Maybe I'll play around with that some more and report on the results later.