I have been very busy over the past few weeks and thats putting it lightly, I have moved house, moved city, moved well....life basically, as well as doing wedding after wedding. All of this has left less time for my blog, but i'm determined to keep it up, as maybe one day I can look back and laugh/cringe at my ramblings. I will hopefully get the chance to do some more wedding blogs soon (including a disney themed wedding) so watch out for them in the coming weeks. Before that, I want to do a quick blog on some shots I took this weekend, when I finally had some time to myself. I needed some nature in my life as it's been a little while, so went straight in with my Macro lens for this one....

So to start with then, I would like to introduce you to my find of the weekend, the Smooth Newt: (great name I think we can all agree)

I found this odd looking thing under some wood near a pond, I popped it onto a rock to get some images of it before it warmed up and disappeared. I was using my 100mm macro lens with the ring flash attached to keep the ISO down. I found it difficult to photograph as it was constantly moving so after taking the images of it above, I attempted a technique called focus stacking, which I have not tried out properly but thought it was worth trying. The process required me to use the highest F stop possible for the lens I was using, (in this case a very high F/2) to create a very shallow depth of field. I then needed to focus on one part of the Newt, and get it in focus. Once this was achieved, I took an image and then moved the focus down a bit and took another. I repeated this 7 times as I moved down the body of the Newt right up until the tail. In post processing (photoshop) I was then able to blend/stack the images together.

As you can clearly see from the two pictures above, you are able to see the difference that stacking the images has had on the final image (right). You are able to see right down to the tail on the stacked image which shows off the whole of the animal. Now this process has not been without its faults (or mistakes on my behalf). You can see that there are a couple of areas on the stacked image, which is still soft/out of focus. This is my fault as I simply missed getting that area in focus as I worked my way down the body of the Newt. There was also the issue of doing this hand held, without the use of a tripod. Using a tripod would have made things much easier and steadier, but sadly I did not have time to set it up. I have learnt a lot from attempting focus stacking, and will be looking at doing more like this in the future.

Moving on from my Newt, I also had some luck photographing other insects while out with the macro lens. The image above is a great example of this. I was basically stalking this hoverfly, waiting for it to land and get the shot I wanted. It obliged and I managed to get a tack sharp image of the fly as it came to rest on the brightly coloured flower. Again I could have looked at photo stacking to get the flower in focus as well, but in this instance I feel it was not required.

Again using the macro lens and the ring flash, I was able to do some low key photography, picking out just the vibrant heads of the flowers. I used a F Stop of F/32 in order to create this effect. This is a process I am getting better and better at achieving, with the ring flash vital in getting this effect.

I moved on from these sorts of images to try and get some shots of insects that don't really get much of a mention for being boring or just have a bad reputation/overlooked. While I was photographing the smooth Newt, I noticed a lot of other insects that I could also try and photograph before they disappeared into the undergrowth. The first of these was a massive slug...

I actually love the colours of them (change depending on what part of the county they are in) and the way they glisten as they move. they made for great models as well. I also noticed that they were an ecosystem unto themselves, with tiny mites living on them. If you look closely on this image you can even see one of them on the right hand side.

Last but by no means least it was the turn of these little guys. Now for me, these little things take me back to my childhood like nothing else, which is kind of weird but there you go. Growing up I never called them woodlice, they were always known, and always will be known to me as Grumpy Gravy's....... Now I asked my mum this the other day, 'why do we call them that?', thinking that she would be able to tell me, but she had no clue where it had come from either, it had just been a name we randomly gave to these little things which just stuck. Now for some reason this is not an uncommon theme for these guys, apparently they are known by lots of other names, here are just a few I found.... Pill bug, roly-poly, granny gray, hog-louse, wood bug, chiggy pig, doodlebug and cheesy bobs to name but a few, any more I have not mentioned please leave a comment in the comments section below. They are though amazing invertebrates, and look prehistoric when photographed close up.

Hopefully when the weather clears, I will be able to do some more Macro photography and maybe get that photo stacking process perfected. I may require help with this so if anyone out there would like an adventure/run around in the countryside let me know.

FIN