CalevPhoto

Harvestman Study

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the harvestman is one of the coolest and easiest critters to find.  At the ponds by my office, they are very common and I see one almost every time I photograph there.  I have a number of pictures of them, but I decided to play around a bit more this time to see if I could be a bit more original.

My goal with this shot was to emphasize the legs coming right out at you – as if they harvestman were about to grab you.  I created several versions of this shot, but this one I like the best – with the body of the harvestman just visible behind. 

For those not familiar with our friend the harvestman, they are not spiders.  They are arachnids, but are in the order Opiliones while spiders are in the order Araneae.  Of course, for the squeamish that isn’t very important.  Most people know the harvestman by the common name “daddy long legs".

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A day of ducks and bugs

Last week I decided to spend some time photographing the ducks by building 30.  I felt a bit strange, as the last time I took the time to photograph ducks, I had just bought my camera.  I find it rather humorous how every photographer seems to start with ducks.  They are easy to find, pretty, and don’t mind us getting close.

We watched the ducks for about a half hour.  I didn’t get any shots that I am particularly crazy about, but it was interesting watching them.

From watching them I learned that each pair of ducks seems to have a territory.  Generally the territory is defined by some natural obstacles – such as a fallen tree or some branches.  When another duck (particularly a male) enters this territory the other male will slowly glide towards it.  Most of the time, the intruder responds by backing off and leaving the duck’s territory.  However, once in awhile they start fighting.

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Mysteries come, mysteries go with the Canon 5D Mark II

One of the things I am getting the biggest kick about with the 5D Mark II is the resolution of the shots.  Very often when paired with my MP-E 65 I see things that I would never have been able to notice.  In some cases they answer questions I had always wondered about.  In other cases they bring up new questions.

Mystery solved: How to harvestmen climb?

Here you can see a closeup of two of the legs of the harvestman.  On the ends of each leg are claws.  They obviously use these claws to grasp onto things.  This shot was taken around 3x magnification and is blown up 150%.

Of course, with each mystery solved a new mystery comes along.  This harvestman was found on a fallen leaf.  Therefore the new mystery is – what are those things coming out of the leaf?  My guess is they are some kind of mold or fungus, but I truly do not know.

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A successful weekend

This weekend one of my friends was nice enough to let me use his 40D to take pictures during several Halloween parties.  Saturday and Sunday mornings, I decided to get a few macro pictures in, as the current estimates say I won’t have the 5D Mark II until the end of the month.

I took this shot of a very patient fly, though I was a bit heartbroken that it took off just after this and I might have been able to get the shot off.  Still, I don’t think this one is so bad.

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Finally calibrated my monitor!

For a long time, I felt that buying a monitor calibrator was something that I should do, but it wasn’t crucial.  When I made my recent decision to focus more on print photography than on stock, I decided that it was now necessary to get a monitor calibrator.  I decided to go with the Spyder 3 Elite  I felt that right now the ColorVision S3P100 Spyder3 pro would do what I needed, but I wanted to leave room for growth open in the future. I’ll have a more in depth review of the Spyder 3 Elite in the future, though I must say that it took some work to get it running.

When I first installed it I received an error – spyder3.cpp 297 65550 (0×10004).  I am currently running Windows Vista 64 bit and I figured they probably didn’t test against that.  However their web site states that it is compatible, so I downloaded the 3.0.4 version of the software (3.0.1 is in the box) and I still had some problems.  Then I realized that the older version was still running, so I made sure that I was running the new version and the error went away.  I then had problems getting the suction cup to stay but like the software says if you wet the suction cup slightly it sticks much better.  Finally, the software had a hard time recognizing the device.  To fix this, I just unplugged the USB cable and plugged it back in and then it recognized it.

After all that, the monitor calibrator did make a difference with my monitor.  The before and after shots definitely showed and improvement.  More important, I opened a shot that I created before I calibrated my monitor and I fixed it.

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Harvestman portrait

Today while looking through some of my recent pictures I came across this portrait I took of a harvestman.

I spent not too much time improving this shot from the original.  Mainly, I just strengthened the shadows, increased the contrast, removed some dust spots and used the burn tool around the right eye.  I took a number of shots of this harvestman but I think I like this one the best.  I like how the harvestman is positioned diagonally in the shot on the balance of light and shadows.  I also like how its two front legs go towards the viewer – almost like it is grabbing you.

What do you think?  How would you improve this shot?

A new world next to building 30

A few days ago something caused me to take a path I had never taken before, leading in a direction where I had never been even interested in going.  Next to the cafeteria by the building where I work, there led a path around the building.  One day, while debating whether I should take a walk, I decided to follow it and see where it went.  Sure enough, it went around the building to the front.  I walked for a bit and then decided that it was best to get back – I had a lot of work to do.  However, on the way back I noticed something that I had never seen before.

Literally a few meters away from the path, I noticed a strange sign.  There was no path down to the side, but not much in terms of brush preventing one from taking a look, so I decided to see what it said.  What I found, sitting on the Microsoft campus in a spot where even we weren’t familiar with, was a new world that I am just beginning to explore.

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