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.

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.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Queue Mussorgsky.

Through an academic contact in the Biology department at WVU, the folks in Entomology asked if I would share some of my insect pictures for their Insect Zoo Halloween Event.

Did I have any pictures?  I went through a couple of year's worth and stuffed more than 50 in my OneDrive for Business account so that they'd have something from which to pick.   For all of that, they only chose to use seven that they felt were in keeping with the theme.

I was somewhat disappointed that the pictures weren't bigger, but they felt constrained by the resolution of the images.  Happily for me, a favorite mantis picture could be enlarged quite well.

On the right is a spiny backed orb weaver that I found near a Myaka river tributary in Florida..

On the left, above, is a jumping spider perched on the faucet of my basement sink.  To the right is a blood-sucking Tsetse fly I shot in the biology lab a few years back.  For this shot, the fly was chilled on ice to render it torpid, while it sat warming up on a piece of cork.

Above is the nymph of an ambush bug.  Somewhat like a spider, they suck out the body fluids of their insect victims.  This was my most difficult shot because the plant it's on was moving from the breeze.

Above is an annual cicada.  I had labelled it as a dog day cicada.  I think this is a photo stack.  I also think that this cicada did not appreciate being restrained with a pin through its ass.

Last is a periodic cicada breaking out of its final nymph stage.  Makes me think of the intro sequence to True Blood (see 1:10 mark).  On the blue card is the bio they asked me to write.  Looks as if it could pass as a paragraph in my obituary.

Return of the King

For several decades, the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has been steadily declining in number to the point where it was flirting with endangered status.

This year, for the first time in many years, I have been able to catch the monarch in its various guises.  Close to where I work near the riverfront, there was a stand of milkweed growing in front of the Table 9 restaurant.  Until recently, at least, whoever tended the flowers planted there had ignored the patch of milkweeds growing among the planted flowers.

From an ecological standpoint, its amazing what is drawn to the milkweed.  Below, you can see the business end of the caterpillar munching down among what look to be aphids. 

This shot is actually upside-down from the actual orientation.  It just looked too odd when looking at it that way.

In recent weeks, a new generation of monarch eggs had hatched, and I could see about a dozen or so caterpillars munching away.  Suddenly, however, it looked as if someone might have sprayed herbicide on the milkweed plants, because they all withered almost over night.   I feared for the caterpillars.

Fortunately, it looks like the majority have survived.  Most of the chrysalises that I saw were hanging from the concrete window sill in front of Table 9.  Nice, but not a pretty picture.  One caterpillar, however, ventured up into a stand of Chinese silver grass.

I'd actually shot this chrysalis over several days, experimenting with exposures.  The shot above, while looking like a nighttime picture, was taken in morning light.  I used a ring flash and stopped the aperture way down to get this shot.  Unlike the other shots in natural light, this one succeeded admirably in reproducing the stunning golden beads that form a crescent near the top.

I hope I'll be able to catch these pupae as they are close to hatching.   But for now I'll take you back in time to show you the "mother."  I caught this one on the exact same plant that the caterpillar was on in the first picture.  Although I couldn't see the egg, it looks like she's depositing one on the underside of the leaf.

Here's one back from July 31^st, sucking on a milkweed flower:

Cheap thrills for nerd boy.

Back in Black (and White & Yellow)

It has been years since I've seen a Monarch Butterfly up close.  This long dry spell was broken a couple of days ago, when I snapped this shot in front of Table 9, which is adjacent to the Rail Trail.

Although slightly out-of-focus, this is an interesting shot with a little photobomber bee coming in from the left, and a red milkweed beetle hiding among the flowers on the right.

By some estimates, the population of these butterflies has decreased by 90% in the past couple of decades.  These once-common butterflies became victims to their unusual lifestyle, which involves a yearly migration to overwinter in Florida and Mexico.  Theories for their swift decline include habitat loss due to herbicide use, loss during migration, predators, and parasites.  Maybe it was a perfect storm including all of the above.

This morning, while waiting for my bagel and coffee order at the River Birch Cafe, I stepped outside to revisit the same patch of milkweeds where I had seen the butterfly.   I didn't see any signs of my friend, but I found something just as good:  a sign that the circle of life was still turning.

This is literally the first Monarch Butterfly caterpillar that I've seen in more than a decade!  From the looks of the size of this munchkin, it won't be long before it's ready to metamorphose.

Here's to hoping that they manage to survive the sixth great extinction!

Way Up North

This is the first time ever that I spotted a double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) north of the Florida gulf coast. 

This isn't a great picture of one.  It's just swimming and diving around in the Monongahela river near the Decker's creek confluence.  It has the prettiest color eyes.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site, this bird is well within its migratory range.  It looks like it breeds in Canada, so this one is likely just passing through.

Canadian Nationalism

While photographing a Canada goose, I got down low on a rise and shot up.   The results remind me of nationalistic art.

Here it is, goose-stepping:

And here it is in a heroic art pose:

Winter is Coming

The other day, I noticed this woolly bear caterpillar on my back porch.

Kinda, neat, right?  I've never seen an all-black woolly bear.  At least until recently.   A former co-worker of mine, Bob Myers, posted on Facebook his picture of an all-black woolly bear.

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac

The Woolly Bear caterpillar has 13 distinct segments of either rusty brown or black. The wider the rusty brown sections (or the more brown segments there are), the milder the coming winter will be. The more black there is, the more severe the winter.

Elsewhere in the article, there's this:

there could, in fact, be a link between winter severity and the brown band of a woolly bear caterpillar. “There’s evidence,” he says, “that the number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar—in other words, how late it got going in the spring. The [band] does say something about a heavy winter or an early spring. The only thing is … it’s telling you about the previous year.”

Let's hope that the prediction is wrong,

Three Eyes (What You Gonna Do Now?)

A lunchtime walk down the rail trail today had me admiring the wildlife on a goldenrod flower.
Meet the Paper Wasp (Polistes):

This shot really shows off the three simple eyes or ocelli that are between the wasp's compound eyes. I read on the old Wikipedia that these ocelli are more strongly expressed in flying insects, especially wasps.

From what I've read, these eyes suck at discerning forms, but they are better than compound eyes at seeing light.  Think of them as little light meters. The jury is still out as to their exact function.

In an exclusive to Blogging the Imagination^TM, here's another shot of our lovely little sister:

The title of this post is a tip o' the hat to The Lovin' Spoonful song Four Eyes.

Midnight confessions

Yesterday I posted a photo of a Snowy Egret that I had taken while in Florida last month.  Much to my surprise, this picture has garnered more "likes" on Google+ than any other picture that I have ever posted -- 273 after just one day on the Birds4All community.

Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) is preparing for takeoff: seat back and folding trays are in an upright position.

The thing that I hate to admit is that this is a PhotoShop retouch job.   Here's the original:

Try as I might, I couldn't do a motion de-blur well enough to fix the head around the eyes and beak.  So I did what any other art department flack would have done -- I pasted in a head shot of the same bird from a different photo.   Sue me.  At least it was the same bird.

In my continued effort to justify my re-touching, I recognized that it was a pretty nice picture.  The bird was in a springing position, about to take flight.  I had unfortunately missed getting the tips of the wings, but for the blurred head, the rest of this shot is quite nice.  I can get away with the blurred wings, as they impart the right bit of energy to the shot.  But a blurred head with two eyes is a no-no.

More Bird Watching

Last weekend, I went back to the little pavilion at the Coopers Rock trout pond, and this time I brought along a flash unit for the camera.

Results are a little better, I think:

This one is my favorite, as it captures a barn swallow with a fly in its mouth.

Here's where the bugs go:

Thank goodness for telephoto lenses... and for tripods.  For without those, I never would have gotten this distant shot of a cedar waxwing.

Bird Watching

I went to the trout pond near Coopers Rock State Forest the other day and spent a little time stalking the wily Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).  This is supposedly one of the most abundant living land bird in North America.  I had to think about that statement for a moment.  Are there abundant dead land birds?   Perhaps they meant zombie passenger pigeons.

Anyway, red-winged blackbirds are not at all common for me, so I was happy to catch a few good shots.

The next on is also a red-winged blackbird, but it doesn't have the red wings.  From what I've read, that indicates that it's an immature male.

I don't speak blackbirdese, so I couldn't tell off-hand that his tweets were immature.

Finally, there's a little pavilion by the pond, where there must have been at least half a dozen barn swallows nesting.  After waiting for several minutes, a few of them began returning to their nesting area.

They're actually pretty colorful birds.  Unfortunately, this shot doesn't show off the blue upper back.

Oh Happy Day

The majority of my "social" activity is doubtlessly my posting photographs to Google Plus.  One of the communities to which I like to post is the Landscape Photography Community, which has periodic themes for their submissions.   Their current theme, event #105, is "Oh Happy Day."  The theme is supposed to be a landscape photo that evokes that emotion (for the photographer, at least).

I had to go all the way back to December 1, 2014, for my Happy Day^TM, and that's probably a stretch.

On that day, I was at Englewood Beach on Florida's Gulf Coast.  I had recently bought a Canon EF 70-200 f/4L telephoto lens, and I had been trying to get shots of the various birds and things at the beach.

To the uninitiated, the "L" (Canon Luxury Lenses) series of Canon lenses is their professional line of SLR photography lenses.  Ever the poor boy, I got the bottom end of the best -- a 200 mm lens with no image stabilization (IS), which would have added a couple hundred more dollars to the price tag.

Even when I was just laying on the beach sunbathing, I couldn't keep from futzing with the camera.  I rolled over on my blanket and saw this group of Royal Terns congregating between me and another sunbather.

It was so bright out on the beach that I was able to shoot at the lowest ISO (100) and stopped down to f/16 at 1/100 of a second, hoping to get the best depth of field beyond the birds.  I didn't exactly succeed in that regard, but the results are still nice, maybe even more aesthetic by virtue of keeping the bikini-clad sunbather slightly out of focus.

Still, after all this time, I can appreciate the quality of the lens.  I went back to the camera raw image file and gave it minimum adjustments for brightness and color balance.  The rest is straight out of the camera.   Those are some sharp looking birds in that picture.

So, that's my happy place:  wildlife, a sunny beach on the ocean, a nice lens, and a little incidental eye candy.  That's a nice place to be.

Mighty Mitey

Meet the Red Velvet Mite (Trombidiidae), at least I think it is -- there are thousands of different species.

It looks like a red russet potato with legs. Looking around at Google Images, I've seen a mite like this also identified as a chigger, but I suspect that it's a mistake. They are classified as arachnids, but they are not spiders.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about these mites. If you want to get a lot of factoids about them, I recommend What Are Mites? The Red Velvet Mite (Trombidiidae) that's part of Owlcation.com.

Interestingly, one Indian (the sub-continent) species of velvet mite (rombidium grandissimum) has some unusual medicinal properties. Check out Indian Viagra in Siddha Medicine also used for limb paralysis and to improve spermatogenesis

For something a little more whimsical, TheOatmeal goes into great depth on the subject of Red Velvet Mite Love. Enjoy!

Ohwha Tagoo Siam

This kōan from my deformative Boy Scout years, circa 1969, has stayed with me.  Recite the mantra:
O-wha Ta-goo Siam!

Say it over and over again, and you will be enlightened.

This week, I've been packing my telephoto lens every morning in the hope of catching the WVU Rowing Team at practice on the river, near where I work.   Luck has not smiled on me.

What I did manage to get is nothing worthy of Nat-Geo, but it will have to do.  Here is a Canada goose (Branta canadensis) proclaiming its stand-on vessel status.

The next shot is less crisp, but it spoke to me:

What is said is "Don't paddle away from me when I'm talking to you!"

Close call on the mythic gold bug

Last year, I declared the gold bug to be one of my goals.  Yes, you may laugh.  Later, I actually sighted one, but it got away before I could photograph it.

The gods mocked me again last night, when I was able to photograph the gold bug's close relative, the Mottled Tortoise Beetle (Deloyala guttata).

It's sitting on a sheet of paper.  I photographed it with my iPhone 5s, with an Olloclip 7x magnification lens.  The MTB (as we bug brains like to call it) is quite fetching it its own right.

And lest you think I stand alone among nuts, here's a nice page of tortoise beetle pictures.

Dino-Chicken

Back almost a year ago, I posted this shot of a chicken pondering its inner Rex:

Little did I know that my snarkiness was already passe, as witnessed by this December 22, 2011, piece in LiveScience:  How to Make a Dino-Chicken (Infographic).

Now, it is said, we're half way there: Dino-Chicken Gets One Step Closer.

I'm glad they're working with little 'ol chickens.  Imagine what an order of those chick wings would look like!

You can keep the tail, though.  Even though Anthony Bourdain says  "...chicken ass is the best part. You can get it at any [Japanese] Yakatori joint. It's fatty and delicious."

Sure.  Send them to Japan.

Silly Goose

These Canadian geese were sitting on a log in the Monongahela river.  I imagine they're on their way south, but I wonder if the silly geese know this river is flowing north.

If they stuck it out, they'd eventually be going down the Mississippi.   Wonder how long *that* would take?

Some Googling tells me that it's 102 miles from Morgantown to Pittsburgh.
It's 981 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois.
From Cairo, it's another 871 miles to the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway -- assuming we're going all the way south.

Total = 1,954 miles.    For everything else, there's MasterCard.

One thing for sure, it has to be a lot shorter as the bird flies!

A story with legs

Last Sunday, I took a brief stroll around White Park in the First Ward.  Thought I'd find some mushrooms to photograph, but I was disappointed.  I did got off this one shot of something strange sitting on a burdock burr.

It's kind of hard to see, but this "thing" has legs.  I posted the photo on Google+, guessing that it might be some sort of leafhopper.  By the end of the day, another person on the Macro Photography group that I haunt had identified it:  meet Helia bimaculata, the Two-spotted Locust Treehopper.

A Short Life

Last night, I stood guard by the butterfly bush, hoping to catch a feeder.  It was a qualified success.

The Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) lives only about two weeks as an adult, and it looks as if this one has already slipped past his due date.  What a sad little butterfly.

So, when nature gives you beat up lemons, you take closeups and crop to avoid the sorry blemishes.

Close up, you don't see the sorry state this butterfly is in.

 

Here's a song to go with the two shots above (SYTL).