210: Green Furry Caterpillars

I found yet more caterpillars on my black kale today. (Small White?)
After picking off all that I could find, I figured making whatever use I could of them would be good; I tried leaving some out for the birds a few days before, but they didn't get eaten. So a photo now, and into the compost bin afterwards... Sorry folks, that's life. It's them or my vegetables.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 49mm extension, 1/4 flash, glass, red paper, white cards, copy stand.

209: Bound Beans

A roving squash tendril wraps around this green bean pod. I'm not bothering to free the pod, as these wrappings are surprisingly tough; and it's probably doing more good to leave it as it is. It looks interesting, so there's another reason to leave it.

Settings: f/4, 1/60, ISO 400, 50mm Pentacon M42, 9mm extension. Slight cropping, sharpening and noise reduction.

208: Crimson Ice Cup

Another cup & liquid photo, but this time the cup is made of ice and filled with a red food colouring solution.
I tried to get a similar effect to what I shot before (the tea glass,) but I wanted the thick ice walls here to show up quite white.
The problem was that the flash light (directed up from underneath as before) was filtered completely red by the liquid, and painted the whole cup red. I tried a different shot here, using the flash directly on the side of the ice from the right.
The result is better this way, but next time I would want to use two flashes - one from beneath, and another from the side.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, DA 18-55 (45mm), 1/4 flash, black foam & cloth backdrop, tripod. Some slight colour adjustments and retouching.

207: Green Beans

I can't seem to pick these beans fast enough now that the plants have started producing pods. They're already a strong contender for best crop of the year.
They're delicious too, raw or cooked. I don't know how good they're going to be when I've left some pods to grow bigger, but hopefully they'll not be too stringy.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash, white foam and cards, tripod.

206: Pink Gooseberries

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash, white foam and cards, tripod.

205: Cardboard Cross-Section

Settings: f/5.6, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 77mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

204: Chamomile and Calendula

The mixed offerings of home-made tea. The calendula petals add some extra colour to the mix, but I don't think too many should be added, as they are slightly bitter.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 77mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

203: Ladybabies

Babybirds? (Baby bugs.)
These were found under a curly parsley leaf a couple of days ago, but then all a cluster of tiny yellow eggs. I was unsure what they were, and left them indoors. I noticed they had hatched this morning, and initially thought they were blackfly. On closer inspection I was delighted to see they were ladybird larvae. I put them ouside under a blackfly-encrusted squash plant - even though it doesn't seem affected, I hope that the larvae will find plenty to eat there, as well as adequate shelter.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 136mm bellows, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

202: Spider in the Parsley

This is one of those shots taken quickly, and without much thought. What I liked about this was the unexpected detail lurking in the focus area it's cropped to.
It's nice to think that I may have noticed it subconsciously, but most probably not - just a curious accident.

Settings: f/4, 1/160, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 19mm extension. 100% crop.

201: Fibre Patterns

Settings: f/4, 1/13, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 58mm extension, flourescent table lamp, copy stand.

200: Mouldy Canes

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 19mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod.

199: Wire Mesh

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

198: Bread and Cheese

What's in a namesake?
No cheese. No bread either, for that matter. Just leaves from a hawthorn.

Settings: f/11, 1/4, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 10mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

197: Worms of the Earth

Fresh from the compost heap, and quite lively.
Look closely, and rows of very tiny, short hairs are visible running down their sides.

Settings: f/16, 1/2.5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 1/4 flash, glass, white cards, copy stand.

196: Bread and Oats

Settings: f/8, 1/2.5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 10mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

195: Blackcurrant Cheesecake

Settings: f/2.2, 1/180, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, white card.

194: The Imposter

That lone strawberry is looking a little misplaced among twenty-three small, sour, apples.

Settings: f/8, 1/3, ISO 200, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, black cloth & white cards, copy stand.

193: Mixed Steel Screws

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

192: Dry Potato Leaf

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

191: Drain Frog 2

Settings: f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension.

190: Flower Tongue

Settings: f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension.

189: Hilda's Berries

There berries are fresh; some slightly shriveled areas, but they're still tasty.
The variety of dark red tones of these berries show up well.

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod.

188: Blackcurrants Aplenty

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod.

187: Hard Drive Circuits

They don't make hard drives encrusted with chunky ICs (like this one,) anymore. Everything's all tiny and flat now.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

186: Glass Reflections

A furious light show of reflections between several glass jars - the flash was cast directly from the right side.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 10mm extension, 1/4 flash, black backdrop, tripod. Boosted colour, slight cropping.

185: Unusual Alliums

Elephant garlic flowers, cut a few weeks ago, but still starting to bloom in a small vase of water. The uncut heads in the garden are at about the same stage now.
ettings: f/2.8, 1/4, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, white reflector & black backdrop, tripod.

184: Six Jets, Smoke Trails

The Red Arrows, performing at the Waddington Air Show. I'm not sure if they were supposed to only be flying six jets that time; maybe some of them were not ready. I also can't tell if there are five of six smoke trails here, but I reckon it's probably five.
I particularly like how the sun shines brightly though the peak of the smoke trails.

Settings: f/6.3, 1/1000, ISO 200, P-FA 50mm.

183: The Crossing Point

So we've just crossed the halfway point of 2010. Where did all the time go?
The past, of course.
I think this project is going well, despite some distinct difficulties with finding good subjects that cause me to hunt around for small things to shoot tiny details of. Note to self: Please try not to macro-scavenge so often.
There's just no substitute for breaking from familiar ways and trying something new, but some days things just don't go so well, and I end up posting three images a couple of days later to catch up.

Doubt, lazyness and insularity are the inglorious trifecta of bad ways I must fight against if I want to see this year-long project through to its end.

The EOS D30 has a definite problem with white balance in some RAW files. Loaded up in some editors they look distinctly green, and when I corrected the white balance, the blown-out sky in this shot went very purple. So monochrome was a good option here. JPEGs are usually fine - if only it had the contemporary-style option to shoot both.

Settings: f/8, 1/160, ISO 200, EOS D30, 35mm Photax-Paragon M42. Some sharpening, curves adjustment and cropping.

182: Twisty Twigs

This could be mistaken for a twisted little old tree shot at night-time - near a nearby sodium street lamp. In reality, it's a bit of an old fuschia bush (1/2 metre long,) lit by a halogen lamp on the upper right, and a handheld flash from the upper left.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/4, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, tungsten light, black cloth, tripod.

181: Luminous Tea Glass

I tried some plain water in this IKEA glass first, and then decided to try some green tea - and the result was much more interesting. The slight hazyness is from the tea sitting in the pot for a while.

Settings: f/11, 1/4 sec, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, glass plate, black foam and cloth, tripod.
I suspended a sheet of glass over two sturdy plastic tubs and topped it with an A4 sheet of black craft foam with a circular hole cut in the middle (just slightly smaller than the base of the glass.) My old Canon flashgun was placed under the glass, pointing directly up with a piece of kitchen paper over it as a rudimentary diffuser.