[Aaron28]

Railroad Tracks at Dawn (DFA 24-70) Once again, just taken around the corner from my home. Just a matter of waking up early enough to see the sun in the right spot.

love it! splendid shot!

[Aaron28]

made it a point this year to shoot people more often and try to learn to use flash which is used in all but the 120 film & wildlife shots

my favorite model Momma had trouble with getting both flashes to work using cactus v6iis....the one on the right didn't cooperate but still like it



didn't get to do many star trails but this is the first I sorta captured lightning



almost a rarity to get time for the milk way



best friend Gabe Larose working on his 3rd album..he invited me to the studio so I could get a few shots



got in a few pics with a good long time friend





favorite from my first roll of 120 film using a yashicaflex TLR



my buddy Gabe's daughter as a hobbit for Halloween



of course gotta have my puppers! Barney & Prissy





and whats a year without some birding

[iheiramo]

Oh my god! Sorry for this horrendous typo.

It was quite funny, actually, once I figured out what you ment

[Doundounba]

Thanks to Rondec for starting this thread, and congrats on the new baby girl! I always enjoy seeing other's yearly favorite shots, and lots of great work has already been posted.

For myself, I think I shot less last year than any other year since I started getting into photography. On the one hand, there just seemed to be so few Odonatas (dragonflies and damselflies, my favorite subjects) around last summer, and on the other hand I've been spending more and more time on my bike, so fewer photo outings. Also, it seems to be getting harder and harder to get a shot that is interesting and not simply a repeat of a shot I took before... Yet, I still think I took some pretty OK pictures, and here are my nine favorites.

First a couple of springtime bee shots. I find bees that are actively pollinating to be very difficult subjects, because they are so active and constantly moving around that it's super hard to nail focus, get decent framing and nice subject pose. But I think this one fits the bill (though it's "just" a common honey bee).




Then also sometimes you find a bee that is taking a break. This one only allowed a few frames before flying off. Much smaller than a honey bee. I just think it looks great with its thick mustache.





For this one, I would have liked to have a bit more magnification, but the tiny spider was moving around and I would have simply lost it from sight if I'd changed my lens setup, so I just shot with what I had. What is great about this shot is that the spider captured a collembola and in the shot where I nailed focus, you can still clearly recognize the super tiny critter hanging upside down in the spider's mouth. A moment later the collembola was just an unrecognizable blob of matter. (BTW, that was pretty much pure luck, as I didn't even see the collembola until I looked at the shots once back home.) I don't think there are that many shots of jumping spider predation of collembola out there...





These are pretty much the tiniest hoverflies in my neck of the woods, and it's always nice to get a (ahem) behavioral shot. (Note also the strategically situated wing obscuring the background!) This one is also a focus stack - the wind made it really hard to shoot, but this couple were super cooperative.




This one is just a common fly, but really my type of shot.




Conversely here, this is more or less just a documentary photo, but of a species I'd never seen before. And it turns out to be the only sighting of this species in Quebec reported on Bugguide!




And another hoverfly I really like:




We planted milkweed in the front yard. Didn't spot any monarchs this year, but I did see and photograph this Red Milkweed Beetle. Tough to get both halves of the split eye in focus!





Finally, I think this is one of my favorite flake shots ever (though I'm sometimes tempted to redo the post on it to make it pop a bit more)...

[RGlasel]

this is one of my favorite flake shots ever

Your insect photos are great and so is this snowflake photo. How did you capture it midair instead of on glass?

[Doundounba]

Your insect photos are great and so is this snowflake photo. How did you capture it midair instead of on glass?

Thank you! For snowflakes, if the title includes the words "collected flakes" (as here), then I used a fluffy tuque (or sometimes a glove/mitten) to collect flakes as they were falling. So the flake above isn't quite in midair, it's actually hanging off the polyester threads of a fluffy tuque, and you can see some in-focus threads around the flake. The tuque is also what gives the background its distinctive color and texture, and I like the look it provides - I feel it makes for a distinctive type of shot. Everything is shot handheld - no glass plates and no tripod or other apparatus to hold the camera.

[timb64]

Thank you! For snowflakes, if the title includes the words "collected flakes" (as here), then I used a fluffy tuque (or sometimes a glove/mitten) to collect flakes as they were falling. So the flake above isn't quite in midair, it's actually hanging off the polyester threads of a fluffy tuque, and you can see some in-focus threads around the flake. The tuque is also what gives the background its distinctive color and texture, and I like the look it provides - I feel it makes for a distinctive type of shot. Everything is shot handheld - no glass plates and no tripod or other apparatus to hold the camera.

Wow,you have incredibly steady hands

[Doundounba]

Wow,you have incredibly steady hands

Thanks, but not especially! The flake is not parallel to the plane of the sensor - it is actually tilted "backwards", with the top of the flake further from the camera and the bottom of the flake closer. I brace with my elbows on the table, slowly move the focus point to just a bit past the top edge of the flake, then fire at continuous high while moving the camera backwards in as much of a straight line as possible, and as slowly as possible (just a few millimeters, really). The shots are focus stacked using Zerene, which is pretty good at correcting for slight imperfections in my movement. The important thing is to not move too fast, which creates "gaps" in focus coverage. For each flake shot, this process is repeated many times and the shots are inspected in post to find the burst with best movement and best light. (Tiny changes in angle of flash can make a very big difference in the appearance of the flake.) So the shot above is a twenty-one frame focus stack, which means the burst took about 2.5s to capture using the K-3's 8.3fps burst speed. For flakes, I use a lithium-ion powered flash with external battery (Godox AD180), and that flash at my typical power use (1/32 to 1/64) can easily keep-up with 8.3fps bursts for 30+ frames. That's the whole technique, in a nutshell.

[edom31]

A few favourites from last yearWith the K-3

Lovely framed windows without distortion!

[paulh]

here are my nine favorites.

Excellent set of images!

[jacamar]

Lovely framed windows without distortion!

Thanks Edom - I was there again today - there's 2-300 feet of these windows on an old factory that won't be around for much longer. It's hard to completely avoid distortion - I did a bit of de-skewing in post processing.

[MossyRocks]

Finally, I think this is one of my favorite flake shots ever (though I'm sometimes tempted to redo the post on it to make it pop a bit more)...

Having tried to do some snowflake shots previously and not gotten anything as nice as this I am curious about your technique. You say handheld focus stack so do you just put the camera in burst mode and blast away or how does that work? Did you use live view? Yes I did go and read the captions over on flickr.

[Doundounba]

Excellent set of images!

Thank you!

Having tried to do some snowflake shots previously and not gotten anything as nice as this I am curious about your technique. You say handheld focus stack so do you just put the camera in burst mode and blast away or how does that work? Did you use live view?

Ah... Did you see my previous post upthread? The one that ends with "that's the whole technique, in a nutshell"? Yes, I do use liveview. But with the lens combo used for the shot above (D-FA 100mm, HD DA 1.4X AW and Raynox DCR-250), I think the viewfinder ought to remain bright enough to be usable - if you use stopped-down reversed lenses the viewfinder will get really dark - and actually using the viewfinder would really help with the slow controlled movement that is necessary during bursts. Not sure how hard to would be to gauge focus though. But I'm using a bracket to get the flash horizontal that protrudes backward and hinders my ability to use the viewfinder, so the point is moot for the moment for me. But that's something I'd like to change... I'd also like to improve my ability to identify interesting flakes or flake piles before shooting, as well as get better at quickly finding the angle of light that makes the main subject flake really light up. Snowflakes degrade reasonably quickly (by sublimation) after they fall, and I can see that if I shoot the same flake 5-8 times - maybe over a one or two minute period - in the last bursts the flake will often have "shrunk" and lost some complexity/beauty.

BTW, the main reason for doing everything handheld is that I use snowflakes to practice my technique for shooting very small live subjects during the summer. (For example, the green bottle fly shot above is an eight-frame stack that leverages the same shooting technique.) I'm growing to appreciate snowflakes in their own right as subjects, but at first they really just provided a reason to practice since there is not much else tiny and interesting around in the winter.

[MossyRocks]

Ah... Did you see my previous post upthread? The one that ends with "that's the whole technique, in a nutshell"?

I missed that post but upon your mention of it did read it, thanks. I think I will have go and get out the big LED shop lights (dual 10,000 lumen ones) when I give it a try next (maybe later today or tomorrow) and really throw some light as I don't have a strobe.

[paulh]

From October while SoCal was experiencing high winds and wildfires: