Monday 14 May 2012

Hold it right there...

No trapping last night so no moths. Instead, one of my famous photographs of hovering bee-type things. This can be fun for all the family, provided you have (a) a digital camera with macro facility and (b) a sunny day.


Given (b), take (a) outside, turn on to macro mode and hold in front of you. Within seconds a hovering-type insect will come and examine what it presumably takes to be an exciting new flower. Point the camera generally in its direction and take as many pictures as you can (impossibly costly in the old film days). At least one of them is likely to be passable, as above.

In time, I would like to hone this craft, to get as much detail as possible. But I suspect that it will always be a matter of luck. There is no shortage of these hovering creatures, which do not have the bright, wasp-like colours of a high summer hoverfly, but at the same time do not seem to be authentic honeybees.  I have much to learn...

2 comments:

Banished To A Pompous Land said...

Snap Martin! Just impossible for the likes of you and me in the days when cameras had film inside.

http://banishedsbugs.blogspot.com/2012/04/in-flight.html

Shot 150 pics for my dragonfly

MartinWainwright said...

Brilliant!

I'm off over to to your blog shortly to have a look

Hard to recall the days of film now...

(although I have an ancient colleague who still swears by it, and by black and white)

all warm wishes

M