View allAll Photos Tagged thumbs
This is my 8 year old son Alexander, we go swimming all the time, he loves going to the deep end of the pool to dive.
Isabella prepares to ride the Cranbrook float in the 2019 Winter Carnival Parade in Whitefish, Montana. With a population around 20,000, Cranbrook British Columbia, 120 miles to the north, is the closest large Canadian town to Whitefish. Every June, Cranbrook holds Sam Steele Days and Isabella is the 2019 festival Sweetheart. The celebration is named for a Royal Mounted Police Officer and iconic hero of the Canadian West. Cranbrook sent a large float and two lovely young ambassadors to the Whitefish Winter Carnival Parade. The Sam Steele Princess accompanied Isabella to the parade and other festivities. After you see their photographs I think you will agree that both are beautiful young women.
Just a quickie from this evening, a lovely Poplar Hawkmoth (Laothoe populi) sitting on the tip of my thumb. This is one of Britain's largest moths, and whenever I have an MV moth trap running my kids always love these because they're relatively untwitchy and have very 'grippy' legs - usually when we empty the trap they put these on their tshirts and they usually happily sit there for 10 minutes or so warming up their wings before flying off! (Being large, I think it takes them a bit longer to vibrate their wings to warm them up enough to allow them to fly away into the night).
Actually the reason for posting isn't so much this photo but more to give an update on what I'm doing. I've just finished shooting the cover for part I of a new comprehensive guide to British Beetles that's being written by Andrew Duff. But my other project has been to build myself a substitute MP-E 65, Canon's legendary 1:1-5:1 extreme macro lens, which I'm calling the MP-E 64.
The good news is that I've succeeded, and I'm about 90% of the way with a lens that is 90% of the MP-E 65: it goes from 1:2 to 3:1 (great range for insects), V1 was acceptable (just), this photo is with V2 (not too bad at all) with a successful build of a decent diffuser for it, and all the bits for V3 are coming in the post next week. Once I'm done and I've field tested it a bit I'll put out a post about how to make it.
The handy thing is that my MP-E 64 lens can actually be made for any brand, gives you enough light to use 1/16 power at 100 ISO (ie machinegunning possible, no waiting for flash to recharge) and most importantly, you can control the aperture through the camera (ie no need to have lens set at dark f/8 like reversing). It also costs about 100US at most!
If you're an extreme macro nut like me, it's exciting =)
Technical: 1/90s, rear curtain Metz-58II flash wide @24deg @1/32 on top with long oiled 120gm premium paper diffuser. MP-E 64 lens @1:2 @f/13. Oiling (ie wd40) a piece of premium paper makes it much more like tracing paper, ie cuts reflection and increases transmission. Makes for fantastic (and cheap) diffusion material, I kid you not. The highest quality paper is bleached so a little bit on the blue side too, double win. By long I mean the diffuser is about 25cm long and 25 wide at the front, a triangle. Good for general diffused light cutting out the central hotspot without killing the other light too much, as you can (hopefully!) see. Ie I think the diffusion on the eyes isn't crazily specular and really looks quite consistent over its area. Larger size: farm9.staticflickr.com/8151/7624663580_e4fd088df0_o.jpg
UPDATE 2014 - I have put together an extreme macro photography learning site to explain the techniques and equipment used for all my macro photos here in Flickr which is now ready. To point to a few of the links that people who want to learn this stuff might like to have a browse of:
Focus Stacking, Focus Stack Preparation, Shooting A Stack, Stack Processing, Stack Post Processing, Schneider Kreuznach Componon 28 mm f/4, Schneider Kreuznach Componon 35 mm f/4, Schneider Kreuznach Componon 80 mm f/4, Nikon El-Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8N, Reject Enlarger Lenses, JML Optical 21 mm f/3.5, 20 mm Microfilm f/2.8, Anybrand MP-E 65 Macro Lens, Manual, TTL, Rear Curtain Sync, Extreme Macro Backgrounds, Single Colour Background, The Gradient Background, Adjustable Flash Shoe Mounts, Extension Tubes, Eyepiece, Field Monitor, Flash Bracket, Focusing Helicoid, Holding Tools, Lens Adapters, M42 Iris, Macro Tripod, Making A Macro Beanbag, Insect Photography
"Electric Thumb:" Thumb Butte appears to be on the receiving end of last night's electric storm in Prescott.
ODC Challenge - Lines
These lines can get you in trouble or save your life.
I guess I've blown the witness protection program now.
A captain asked for a souvenir shot before changing jobs. I knew where to go, it was just a matter of him seem me and... acknowledging ! :)
© Jeff R. Clow
This fine fellow helped me rethink the meaning of the term "having a green thumb".
I shot this one handed with my right hand while holding this barking tree frog in my left hand as I returned him to a safer place in our garden.
If you have a moment, I hope you'll view this at the larger size linked below:
A Marine with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, puts his thumb up after he successfully donned and cleared his M50 Gas Mask during a simulated counterattack on Range 10, Nov. 8, 2014.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brittney Vella/Released)
Thumbs up and a big smile ends my show for this week. I hope you have enjoyed it and that you will be back next week.
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