Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Well – not film in general, but the stuff I shipped off while on vacation came back on Monday. It took 6 days to arrive at my destination, but only 3 days to make it back home. Arg –well, at least it made it back.

There are 5 rolls of silver B&W film, and one roll of slide film. With the B&W film I plan to use Rodinal 1:50 for the Efke KB 100 (2 rolls) and Agfa APX 25 (1 roll.) The roll of Tri-X 400 and Plus-X 120 that I bought on site will be souped in D76 1:1. In the case of the Tri-X this is to minimize grain, in the case of the Plus-X its because I haven’t tested it in any other developer. This is the ‘new’ Plus-X – the old stuff I would happily develop in Rodinal. 

Here’s a first glimps from the first roll to come out of the developer – Hooker Falls, shot on Efke KB 100. The film workflow is mighty slow – with at least an hour per roll for developing and more time yet for scanning it’s a slow process. In a few days, whatever worthwhile photos I get from the film will be on line.

Again in Michigan, yesterday I made my way back into the Allegan forest. I wanted to catch the final stages of the field of coreopsis off 46th street, and was hoping for a better showing of dragonflies and possibly some Karner Blue butterflies.

When I got beck home one of the things I noticed on the first night was the abundance of fireflies floating around in my yard at night. Maybe it’s just the fetid great lakes climate, but there seems to be many times the insects here than compared to North Carolina.

Arriving in Allegan I was surprised to see that the field I had hoped would still be in bloom was now far past its peak. There were a few coreopsis, no vetch, and just a couple of clumps of butterfly weed dotting the landscape. Unlike past years, there were very few fritillary butterflies – this place is usually swarming with them in June.

I noticed a goldfinch perched on a scrubby oak sapling at the far end of the field, and headed in towards it. Within a few minutes I noted another finch, then another, and still more. As I came up on the end of the field the grass suddenly exploded with gold finches, and I’d estimate a flock of at least 50 burst out of the low vegetation. A few fox sparrows were mixed in with them – it was quite a sight to see those bright yellow birds flying off in such numbers, and I have never seen a concentration of them like that before.

There were dragonflies in the field, and I got a few shots of them and then went off to an area where Karner Blues are locally prevalent. Unfortunately, on this day none were to be found. I headed back to the car and decided to visit the crumbling hunter’s perch that was a subject of one of my very first Holga shots.

The perch is located a few hundred yards into the woods, east of a parking area. A good portion of the walk takes you through an area of oak saplings ranging from 4 to 6 feet tall – the upshot being that you can’t see a darn thing around you as you wander along. I first found this area in early March, when the the trees were bare, and it was an easy place to navigate. But I carelessly wandered in later that spring only to have a few frustrating hours when I couldn't find my way out of the woods.

The perch is decaying. It had bent a lot over the last winter, but not it has straightened out but has rotated about 90 degrees. It remains chained to the tree that supports it, and will no doubt out last me on this earth. I took a few digital IR shots of this place, and some of the adjoining areas – places I've shot before. 

I posted a few days ago about travelling in North Carolina. I’ve been home now for a day and have had a chance to sort through my digital images. I’m still waiting for the film I shot (not many rolls) to come through the mail, but for the time being I’m working with purely digital images..

This trip was a lot like the Chicago Trip last October (see Oedipus in Chicago). My wife had a business conference in Asheville, and I tagged along. We extended her trip to allow for a few days of vacation, but for three days at the start of the week I was more or less on my own, exploring the area and looking for photographic opportunities.

I’m not a great traveler and am not skilled at getting into a new area quickly and effectively. Most of my photography is built upon a deep familiarity of the area I’m shooting. I also travel heavy when I shoot locally, taking virtually all my gear with me.

Flying into North Carolina was a whole ‘nother experience. I was confined to bringing only the gear I could carry on an airplane. After much deliberation I wound up purchasing a Lowepro Mini Trekker, and packed it full – bringing one 35mm film body, one Digital SLR, three zooms covering 20 through 200 mm, a 1.4x teleconverter, 50mm f 1.7, 200mm f4 macro, and the X Drive II, batteries, filters, step up rings, GPS, memory cards, and other bits and bobs.

Ultimately, it was a light kit at ~20 lbs. I never used the 200mm macro, 1.4x teleconverter, or the external flash, and scarcely used the 70-200mm f2.8 zoom. So I brought a I fair amount of gear that proved to be unnecessary. The only thing I really regretted leaving behind was a full sized tripod. I brought a small minipod that rises up to about 2 feet, and while it worked well in some situations, a full sized tripod would have been much better.

I really pondered the film vs digital issue for this trip. I knew I would want to photograph landscapes, and I remain convinced that high quality 35mm film will out perform a 6 megapixel DSLR when it comes to landscapes. Better yet would be medium format – but the logistics of transportation really ruled that out.

From what I read, flying with film is questionable. It will be x-rayed, and I worried about fogging. So, I decided to mail the film to the hotel in advance, and ultimately came to think of this trip as a ‘farewell to 35mm film’ tour – I would deliberately try to use up all that 35mm slide film cluttering my freezer.

As Robert Burns put it – "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley".

Arriving at the hotel on Saturday I found – no film. That meant that at best,, the film would arrive Monday afternoon. 

That night we went through downtown Asheville, which is a hopping town, ate good food, wandered all over, and used the GPS to find the car and drive back down to Hendersonville where we were staying. I missed film at this juncture of the trip, since I would have loved to use Tri-X and a wide angle to shoot while walking around. As it was, I was able use the *ist-D at ISO 3200 to get and interesting shot of a church – hey, perhaps my first successful ghost photo (look out, Ted Serios, here I come...)

The next day we drove around in the rental car, and learned that roads in mountainous areas are not laid out on a logical grid (or even semi-logical wheel and spoke) setup – but rather followed the lay of the land.

We stopped at a parking area at the Pisgah National Forest, but as we were preparing to start hiking along the small creek there a local gentleman came up and told us that we really shouldn’t be there. He had worked on the movie “Last of the Mohicans” and told us we needed to find the waterfalls shot in that film. He hadn’t been to the area for a while, but told us in general terms how to get there. It was the Dupont Forest, named after the Dupont factory that was built in the heart of it. He told us the plant made X-Ray film and was built there fore the purity of the water in the local springs. But some German company bought them out a while back.

We followed his directions, and found well marked roads leading back to the Dupont forest. There was an Agfa Plant along the way, and ultimately we stopped at the Hooker Falls / Triple Falls parking area.

This proved to be my photographic focus for much of this trip. The area reminded me a lot of Michigan’s western upper peninsula (though the mountains in North Carolina dwarf the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan,) On Sunday Pam and I visited the falls, and I took some digital snap shots, nothing more.

After that we found the Blue Ridge Parkway, and spent much of the day driving along it. I like driving and it was a fun drive running along the twists and curves. Again, I took several digital snap shots along the way.

One of the great challenges of photography is that no matter what subject you are shooting, you usually wind up shooting something you’ve seen in other photographs. And usually you have seen the cliché’ and hackneyed shots, simply as a matter of sheer probability.

When I come to a new subject, or a new locale, my first impulse is to recreate the shots I’ve seen of it before. And so with the water falls and also running along the Blue Ridge Parkway, my first reaction was to mimic the shots I’d seen of the same subjects. Work on layering of the mountains in the mist, work on catching the waterfalls in soft light, with long exposures resulting in smooth, silky water.

I think it's only natural to want to recreate the images you’ve seen before, and it’s a step in the creative process. The trap is that once you get that shot that is as good as the others you’ve seen, there is a temptation to stop and rest. You have achieved a goal and feel like your work is over – but in reality your work has just begun. Now that you have duplicated the shots already taken, what new thing can you contribute to interpreting the subject?

Come Monday morning I returned to the Hooker Falls parking area, and re-shot the Hooker Falls in the misty morning light. Without film I shot entirely digitally, feeling limited only by the lack of a true wide angle lens (my 20mm lens equates to a 30mm on the digital SLR.)

After a few hours at the falls I went to the North Carolina Arboretum, hoping to shoot some insect macros. I had a pleasant but unproductive walk though the trails there, and called it day.

Arriving at the hotel I learned that the film still had not arrived. I’m reluctant to buy more 35mm film, but decided that I really wanted to shoot the falls with a classic, true silver, B&W. After dinner I dragged my wife from store to store, till at last we found an Ekarts drug store that had one roll (24 exposure) of Plus-X and a few rolls of Tri-X. Great! I bought the Plus-X and three rolls of Tri-X – all the while ruing the absence of my film shipment, chock full of Efke R100, my last roll of Agfapan APX 25, and lots of Adox 400 and color slide emulsions.

That night I also decided to clean the sensor on the *ist-D, and in a move that defies logic, I disabled noise reduction on the camera in the process.

The next day I again headed out to the Dupont forest. I made a bee line to the triple falls – though the mile long hike up the mountain, even on a gentle trail, took a while.

It was a brilliant clear day, and by the time I got to the top of the falls the sun was full on them. I shot most of the roll of Plus-X, hoping to control the contrast through development and scanning. We’ll see how that works out. 

After that I ran up to the covered bridge at the top of the falls, and found it to be unremarkable. Then I headed back down to the middle and lower falls, shooting the last of the Plus-X and also a roll of Tri-X. Here the sun was not yet hard on the water, so I have high hopes for the outcome.

By the time I got back down to the parking lot, the trails were full of people, the streams were full of swimmers, and cruel brutal sun was beaming down.

I was hopeful that the B&W film shot would come out with a sense of classic simplicity that I want for this subject (and as of this writing I remain hopeful – since the film has not yet returned to be developed.) But I also felt a sense of frustration. Here it was – noon on my third day in the area and the best I had managed to achieve was to duplicate the shots of ump-teen other photographers who had wandered through here before.

The night before I had watched Apocolyse Now on the hotel cable channels. The lyric from the Doors song during the into - ‘break on through to the other side’ - kept echoing through my mind.

Thinking of the images from “Last of the Mohicans” sitting by the waterfalls, I was lost in the romance of the pristine natural setting. Looking at the brutal late morning sunlight, I realized that one option was open – infrared. So I set up the *ist-D for digital infared and started shooting.

After what I thought was a productive morning, now early afternoon, I called it day for shooting. Back in the hotel room in Hedersonville, the phone range at around 3:30 pm.

The desk clerk was his usual professional self: “Mr Cassino, the film has arrived.” He said it like Mission Control announces the safe landing of a space shuttle. I picked the box and realized how absurd I had been in my planning to shoot up my film on this trip – here was a hefty box filled with dozens of rolls of film. What was I thinking? Oh well, I began to doubt that I would shoot any of it at all.

My feelings only got worse when I looked at the digital infrared shots and realized that I had disable noise reduction. With this feature enabled the camera takes a long exposure, and then retakes the exposure with the shutter down. It compares the two, and subtracts from the original exposure any hot pixels or other noise that is on the second exposure. Since shooting with the IR filter results in very long exposures – 2 to 8 seconds at f 16 in full sun, at ISO 1600 – this is an important tool to getting a clean shot. While the original images are probably salvagable with post exposure noise reduction software, I was kicking myself for turning the noise reduction feature off.

So now I felt doubly conflicted - I wanted to properly re-shoot the digital IR shots, but I really wanted to shoot the waterfalls with film.

So on Wednesday I headed out and tried to tackle both objectives. I again went to the Dupont Forest, this time shooting Hooker falls on my last roll of Agfa APX 25, and then some of the rapids upstream on Efke RB100. As the morning progressed and the sun grew more brilliant and direct, I switched over to digital IR and attempted to reproduce the shots I had taken before, as well as shooting new settings.

Pam’s session ended at midday that day, so after the morning shoot we went out again along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here again I shot digital infrared. Because of the long exposure times, I needed to use either the mini tripod, or rest the camera on a fence post or sign post while shooting.

On Thursday we did tourist fun things, and then on Friday devoted the day to driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. We picked a good time – it was hot and hazy in the morning, but Thunderstorms rolled in in the afternoon.

We watched the storms roll in from a mountain top overlook, eating the picnic lunch we brought in the car, as it shook in the wind and rain lashed the windows. After an hour of intense storm activity, the weather cleared, and we drove along and watched the mists and clouds rolled in and out of the valleys below.

Things have been a bit slow here on CalArti... I’m on the road in Hendersonville, North Carolina. I just wrote along post covering the first few days here, but really need to sit down and sort through my shots on a proper computer (this laptop with Photoshop Elements is somewhat limited). I will be back in Kalamazoo Saturday, and hope to start getting posts back up regularly – and I’m also looking forward to touching base with my invertebrate friends – the dragonflies and other insects – in Michigan. (NC seems to be uncannily bug free.)

In the meantime, here are two shots of the local mountains – both digital infrared images taken with the *ist-D and Hoya RM90 filter – absolute invisible light. Both are from the Pisgah mountains – rough edits to be sure.

More posts and more images coming shortly for now, no new additons to the Image Stream, but they will be coming early next week.

Summer has finally arrived in West Michigan this year, and today with highs in the low 90’s- hazy hazy hot and humid with  the insects out in force. All this just opens up more possibilities for insect photography.

To be frank, the results of the last couple of trips to the Allegan Forest have been so-so at best. It’s frustrating to drive for an hour, only to find that due to high winds or other less decipherable reasons, the the insects just aren't there to be shot.

Although I call it the ‘Allegan Forest’, the Allegan State Game Area is managed to preserve the Oak Savanna habitat that was prominent in west Michigan in years gone by. The opening photo of this essay captures a bit of the mood and feel of the Oak Savannah.

I took that photo with my insect macro setup – a 200mm macro lens supported with a monopod. The Allegan Forest has several open savanna areas bordered by woodland, and I had just moved from one open area to another, and spotted this large white tail deer working its way across the hazy and hot savanna area. 

The soil in this area is dry and sandy – its not uncommon for my monopod to sing several inches into the sandy soil when shooting. Even in wet weather, the grasses seem to struggle for existence. In the early spring a thick moss covers the sandy soil, and in the summer it crunches underfoot, like walking on so much dried Spanish Moss.

The vetch and the coreopsis were in full bloom, the major problem with the vetch being that it is so low to the ground, and such a downward pointing flower, that it makes it hard to get good shots of butterflies feeding off it.

Things were better with the dragonflies, with may Twelve Spotted Skimmers and White tails now darting about. The skimmers in particular are fond of perching high - especially when it is hot - which makes it easier to get shots of them isolated from the weedy background.

I plan to give Allegan a rest for a week or so, stopping back at the end of the month. In the meantime, I'll be exploring some other photo opportunities.

More photos:

The other day I got a solicitation call from a pest control company. The person on the other end of the line informed me that many people in my neighborhood had problems with insects. “People are even reporting Carpenter Bees in your area,” told me, intoning the words “Carpenter Bees” like VanHelsing would say “the Undead!”

“Well,” I said, “gotta go – if there are carpenter bees out there, I want to see them!” and that ended the conversation.

One nice thing about shooting insects is that you often don’t have to look far to find them. Honey Bees are much less common than they used to be, as are Carpenter Bees, but even in the city (such as it is in a town this size) there are usually bugs on hand to be photographed. So over the weekend I kept my camera handy as I puttered in the yard, and snapped a few shots of a dance fly, snipe fly, and just plain old green bottle fly. I placed my hopes for more exotic species on the week ahead, with a day or two possibly free to do some shooting in more wild settings.

Unfortunately, today I once again found myself behind my time when it came to getting out and shooting. I had two tasks to complete in the morning – making slides to submit to a juried show, and dropping off a couple of pieces for a new exhibit opening in Three Rivers next week. With phone calls and interruptions, it was neigh well noon before I finally managed to slip out for a few hours.

I decided to visit the Kalamazoo Nature Center. This is an approximately 1,000 acre nature preserve that has a few acres of restored native prairie (and is in process of adding one of the largest restored native prairies in the Midwest.) It’s close, just a few minutes away, and has been fruitful in the past.

The restored prairie had been burned back last month, though only a few charred bushes hinted at that. By and large the vegetation had bounced back, and a fair amount of wild vetch and lupine covered the ground. Following the trail into the woods brought a change to wild garlic mustard – a growing (literally) problem.

Skippers – diminutive little butterflies about the size of dime – were the order of the day. They were out in force. When I’m out shooting I’m both trying to build new additions to my portfolio, and also trying to get better quality images of subjects I’ve shot in the past. Though there is nothing exotic or rare about skippers – these were primarily European Skippers at that – I still enjoyed the challenge of trying to improve on the quality of my shots of these diminutive insects – and I think I made a step forward today, if I say so myself.

Also in the “quality improvement” area is the Ebony Jewel Wing or Black Damselfly. As I have commented in past posts, this remains an elusive subject. Today’s shots are a step forward again, but still short of what I eventually hope to attain.

In regards to getting additions to the portfolio, I was happy to have a chance to get a couple of shots of an Ichneumon Wasp. These large wasps are not uncommon – I see them fairly often, but virtually never stop and rest. I was glad to get a good clear shot of this specimen – before it flew off.

A few more photos:

Snipe Fly:

After the last few trips to the local park to shoot dragonflies, I decided today to head out to the Allegan Forest, in hopes of finding something a little different. My plan was to head out early, and catch the growing activity in the bug world (bug-o-sphere?) as the day warmed up.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. Overnight, the temperatures dropped, and this morning was down right chilly. Combined with a heavy overcast sky and stiff breezes, the day did not look promising for outdoor photography.

Nonetheless, I headed out, if only to see how things were coming along in Allegan. It had been several days since I last visited some of the fields carved out of the woods, and I decided to visit a field that has been very productive in the past few years. This is the location where I saw the Olympia Marblewing earlier this spring.

This particular location is thick with coreopsis, purple vetch, and patches of butterfly weed. Wild strawberry pervades the whole field, thicker in some places than in others, but with runners reaching out across the whole area. The soil is sandy and dry, even after it rains, and often the end of the monopod used to support the camera drops 4 or 5 inches into the loose soil when I lean in on it for support. 

Amid all of these wildflowers were punctuated with the first Spicebush Swallow tails of the season. Last year the field came to be full of dozens of Spicebush butterflies at any given time, along with even more fritillary butterflies. In addition, various dragonflies make their way up from the wetlands about half a mile away, perching on plant stalks and patrolling the field for prey.

Today I tried to get some shots of the Spicebush butterflies, and while I managed get some competent shots, nothing in today’s work really stands out. I also tried to get some shots showing the mix of vegetation along with the butterflies, and the image here - though too busy and compositionally cluttered - comes the closest to reaching that goal.

One surprise of the day was a male Calico Pennant dragonfly, who obligingly presented himself to show off his wing markings. Otherwise, there were some common white tails and large darners, but none that would hold still for photographs.

When it comes to producing in this location I have pretty stiff competition from earlier work. I took my best here, along with several good shots of Spicebush butterflies, a fritillary on coresopsis and dragonflies. It’s a difficult place to get good shots – the dense vegetation doesn’t lend itself to the creamy smooth backgrounds – but the abundance of subjects makes it appealing.

I chalk up today as a good start to working this area. I replaced the flash cable on the *ist-D, and the technical glitches that got in the way yesterday disappeared, and it feels good to be back in stride with insect photography.

A few more photos:

These last couple days – yesterday and today, have been really annoying. You know the type – days were everything goes wrong, technology twists around to screw things up, and every undertaking takes three times longer than it should.

I should be used to it, but still get annoyed. Nothing to do though, but to push on and get down what can be done.

I had planned to spend these last two days photographing as much as possible. I had some tasks to accomplish, errands to run, but figured I could squeeze those in as needed. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way.

For starters, the weather turned against my plans yesterday. The once predicted clear day was preceeded by a night of torrential downpours, and dark clouds, gloom, and the occasional spit of rain were on hand as the day broke. No problem – time to do those errands...

But then, first thing in the morning, the wireless lan dropped dead, and no amount of rebooting and powering off and on could restore it. Whenever I mess around with the wireless router, I think of an old Dr. Who episode were Tom Baker steps out of the TARDIS and finds an old TV set. “Looks like human technology” he says to his pretty companion. He flips the switch, nothing happens, and then he gives it a good whack and it comes to life. “Definitely human technology...”

Whacking was an option, but I opted for a firmware upgrade to the router – and after a mere two hours of cussing, rebooting, and more cussing, things finally came back on line and got stable.

Great – still time left to drop off a couple of pieces for entry into a local art competition. Carefully setting the framed pieces against the wall, I turn to hear a crash and see Cali running off, her great plume of a tail signaling some new accomplishment of mischief. And there is my oversized print, face down on the floor, and when I pick it up I find the metal frame dinged and scratched with paint and plaster. Grrr – run to the store, no frames that size in stock.

Needless to say, I was cross with Cali, and with Arti who no doubt played a role in destruction. I patched up the piece as best I could – hopefully my photograph is so compelling the juror’s eyes will never stray to the frame – and dropped the pieces off just on time. 

With that, the weather cleared. I decided to plink away at the flies in my back yard, but found that the flash on my camera simply refused to fire. After a few tests, I found that the adapter on the flash cable was broken.

Someone once told me that only two types of people opened watches. Watch makers and idiots. The same concept applies to photographic gear. Well, it was broken, and I opened it up and confirmed that – or maybe broke it for good. In any case, I mounted the backup adapter too late to do any shooting.

Today I went to the local camera shop, bought a replacement adapter and cord to boot, and after a bit of brief interference went out to to the McLindon trails to try for dragonflies again.

The dragons were out in abundance, and that’s always a pleasure. Today there were lots of widow dragonflies - all apparently female though the juvinile male widow apparently looks much like the female widow (yes - 'male widow' is a contradiction in terms). Since we are so early in the season, I'm pretty sure that reason I'm confused by the species I'm shooting is because there are a lot of juvenile forms out and about - but knowing why you are confused doesn't do much to get you to an answer!

At any rate, my technological difficulties were not over. Despite the new adapter, my TTL flash was working erratically. It would abruptly reset, loosing the compensation and zoom settings I had entered, and often it would just fully discharge, blasting the subjects, when all that was needed was a gentle splash of light.

I ultimately flipped it into manual mode and just worked the old fashioned way – with the digital camera and the histogram, it was pretty simple to figure how to balance the ambient and flash exposures. I did miss some shots that I otherwise would have gotten, but overall the day was not a waste. Some images, like this one, certainly show a more clumsy approach to flash than I would like. Getting home I swapped out the old cord I had been using with the new one I bought this morning – and it looks like a short in the cord was the reason why the flash was cutting in and out.

On the bright side – I took technological countermeasures. I packed up a pair of Holgas with me, and took some landscape shots while out chasing dragons. Nothing much an go wrong with a Holga – and when it does, that’s just part of the charm. I’ve been writing this essay with the laptop on my clothes dryer – the laundry area in my basement doubles as the film developing area. The negs look thin, but scannable.

A few more of today's insect photographs: 

Last October I had the chance to spend a few days in Chicago. It was the end of the summer and I had spent the last several months working on natural history and landscape photography.

I wanted to revitalize by doing something new, so a good portion of the trip to the city was devoted to street photography. This essay is called Oedipus In Chicago, not because I had some terrible secret to work out with Dr. Phil, but because I injured my foot on my first day in town. It was minor enough, but I planned to do nothing but walk all day, every day, and by the fourth day my feet were as swollen and sore as the tragic Greek king’s.

I’ve never been a big practitioner or fan of street photography, so taking a turn at it was a good change of pace for me. I brought no digital cameras, and instead just packed a film camera and several rolls of black and white film. In fact, one of the motivations for this trip was to use up the stock of expired Tri-X and Ilford XP-2 Super that was cluttering up the freezer! I intended to stick to the discipline of a of 50mm ‘normal’ lens, but found myself drawn to the 20-35mm wide angle zoom for most shots.

As it worked out, the Art Institute of Chicago was hosting Paris: Photographs of a Time That Was. While not devoted to street photography, this exhibit had plenty of exceptional examples of the genre, from masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson. It was enough to make even the most reluctant street photographer inspired to wander the city, hoping to awaken to the decisive moment.

And so I hit the streets in Chicago, ultimately stumbling on painful feet. I’m relatively familiar with downtown Chicago – I attended Roosevelt University for several months in the mid 1980’s, and lived on Wabash Avenue, just south of the Loop. This was before my photography days, but I routinely walked up to the then dilapidated Navy Pier, and enjoyed exploring the neighborhoods and business districts in the big city. Up to that point in time, the largest city I had ever lived in was Ann Arbor, Michigan, which was a big place compared to my home town in rural Michigan.

Chicago offers a wealth of excellent architectural and public areas that are excellent for street photography. I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the candid shot – snapping a photo of a person unawares, expecting that their expression or posture says something about them. In my viewing of most street photography, these images tell you more about the photographer and their perceptions (or precomceptions) than those of the subject.

So, I stuck more or less to shooting the street itself, the buildings and odds and ends, with the occasional human figure contributing to the image but infrequently the actual subject. Nonetheless, street photography is a significant change of pace for me. It’s relatively undemanding in terms of technical challenges - not as simplistic as shooting with a Holga, but close enough. Metering is straight forward, there’s no flash or other lighting controlls to monkey with, and I didn’t even both with a tripod. It was more or less ‘f8 and be there,’ as the saying goes.

So the callenge lies in composition, catching the moment when things come together, and seeing the shot in all the clutter of the city. For me, after a summmer of shooting bugs and natural landscapes, just gestalting the urban environment was a refreshing change.

The city itself was an extremely hospitable place. It was early October, blustery and cool on some days, but sunny and clear on a couple as well. People were out enjoying the last fleeting bits of warm weather.

The faded summer plantings and flowers were just beginning to be pulled up, an ominous sign of the upcoming winter weather. One particularly nice refuge was Central Camera - tucked away at 230 S. Wabash Avenue under the EL, just a few blocks from where I used to go to school (Roosevelt University.) It’s a great camera shop with practically everything you could want. I visited a few times, and even though Kalamazoo has a pretty substantial camera store, I found several items not locally available.

Central Camera a narrow tunnel of a store that keeps going, and going, and going as you walk deeper into it. While they are on top of everything modern and digital, this is also the place to get your Holga’s (I bought two during this visit) and re-spooled film in almost every format imaginable. I didn’t sit down, but I rested my aching feet for a while, talking with Albert Flesch, the grandson of the founder of Central Camera. Aside from discussing aquariums and other subjects, I picked up a camera bubble level and several rolls of Konica Impressa 50, along with the Holgas. Its a great shop and any photographer who winds up in Chicago should check it out. I still have the ‘History of Photograph’ shopping bag from the store - which has illustrations about past photographic equipment that even the most detailed textbooks lack.

After the trip I sent off the Ilford XP-2 Super to be developed, and worked my way through developing the many rolls of Tri-X. I had drawn from a supply of ‘old’ (pre-2003) Tri-X 400. The Tri-X was developed in Microdol-X 1:3, my standard developer for this film in 35mm format. I started scanning the images once I returned, but somewhere along the ling lost momentium.

It’s not like I wanted to tear my eyes out when I saw the shots, but I was disappointed. But then, I’m _always_ disappointed when first reviewing work. (If I ever get a good shot, I’ll hang up my cameras for good.)

Obviously, it took me a while to get around to editing these images - since I just sat down and looked at them in ernest here in May. I more or less forgot about them until I was cleaning off the hard drive on my scanning computer, and realized that the scan files were sitting on the disk, waiting to be reviewed and edited.

Since street photography is something different for me, I decided to take a different approach to the handling of the B&W images. I typically “tone” black and white scans in Photoshop, to produce an other than neutral appearance. In the past I’ve stuck to more or less emulating traditional darkroom paper tones, or toning processes (like faux Sepia toning.) For this batch of images I applied a subtle purple tone - nothing like traditional B&W processing (unless you consider what happens to poorly fixed prints!)

Hopefully the toning is subtle and not garish on your monitor - it’s amazing how much variation there is from screen to screen. But in any event, the purple haze effect seems to compliment the steely feel of the city, and it seemed to make sense to be consistent throughout the set. It certainly is more subtle than the magenta toning I use in digital infrared shots.

Technical details: All shots taken with Pentax Mz-S, FA 20-35 f4 zoom, or FA 50mm f1.7. Film was a mix of Ilford XP2 Super, Tri-X 400, and one roll of Kodak B&W Plus chromogenic. A few more shots form this trip:

With the first week of June coming to a close, the warm late spring weather has finally arrived. Today I again visited the local municipal park / well field and was pleased to see that dragonflies had at last arrived in substantial numbers. Many of the species have proven to be difficult to identify – perhaps they are juvenile forms, or maybe they are just absent from my field guides. In any rate, several of the subjects remain unidentified.

The park – the McLinden Nature Trails – have large areas of tall grasses. It’s not a native prairie by any measure, but rather cultivated grasses that have just grown out wild. Many areas are pressed flat where deer sleep. The dragonflies are thick in some of these grassy areas, and the lush green grasses behind them make for an attractive background, though getting a clear shot – both front the perspective of grass stalks in front of the subject as well as behind it. 

Today I saw several different dragonflies and damselflies – including Indigo Jewel Wings, several species of bluet damselflies, 12 spotted skimmers, basket tails, and countless common white tails. In addition, the grassy areas were also full of wood satyr butterflies, which flit around the vegetation with their characteristic ‘lazy’ flying style.

This spring is also bringing some unusual insects that, in my experience, are more common later in the summer. Monarch butterflies, lace wings, and grasshoppers are out in abundance. The Monarchs are particularly early, since in the last several years they haven’t shown up until late August. Hopefully this is a good sign and indicates that the monarch population is healthy.

Over the weekend I did the usual spring yard work, but the kept the camera handy to snap opportunistic shots of the insects that popped up. Some old favorites appeared on hand – syrphid flies, lace wings, and the ever present common housefly.

Syrphid flies, with their bee-mimicking appearance, always make for interesting subjects. The don’t seem to be as abundant this spring as in past years, but hopefully things will pick up.

The golden eyed lacewing also makes an interesting subject. As mentioned, lacewings are out in great force this year, and the golden eyed’s are particularly striking, especially when looking at it through the camera lens. These delicate insects are actually fearsome predators, consuming aphids and other small insects.

The common fly makes for yet another interesting subject. Ok – so these guys are disgusting, but still marvelous in the intricacies and detail of their physical structure. These insects can be unpredictable, with incredibly quick reflexes. The Pentax TTL flash system utilizes a preflash, that measures light levels a split second before firing. Some insects – mostly flies – are fast enough to jump into flight when the pre-flash hits, resulting a blurred shot of a fly in flight. 

Today and over the weekend I shot using the *ist-D, 200mm macro lens, flash, and monopod setup. With the monopod it’s possible tog et sharp images at shutters speeds as low a 1/60th of a second (though the reliability of shots at this speed is low). This opens up more avenues to balance the flash with the ambient light, hopefully creating an effective lighting setup.

Here are more shots from today:

A short while ago I wrote a tutorial on how to photograph insects. That essay was focused on using a digital SLR, and shared a lot of material with an earlier essay that covered insect photography using a film SLR. (The digital SLR essay is in this blog, click here to see it.)

To round things out, I was planning to write an essay on insect photograph done with a ‘prosumer’ digital camera. By that I mean digital cameras with a built in zoom lens, that, unlike digital SLR’s, won’t allow the user to change optics.

I’ve used a Nikon Coolpix 990 for insect photography for several years, and while this camera has seen a lot less used in the last couple of years (since I started using the Pentax *ist-D digital slr) it still accounts for a disproportionate percent of what I would consider my best insect shots.

All of the photographs that appear in this essay were taken with the Nikon Coolpix 990.

So while I originally planned to write about using prosumer digital cameras for insect close-ups, I realize that would be over reaching. I only have experience using the Nikon CP990, and given the vast array of digital cameras available, its hard to say how relevant that experience is. So, I’ll limit my remarks to the CP990, and if they are relevant to other digital point and shoot cameras, great. If not – I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Working with the CP990 for insect closeups is completely diffferent than working with an SLR – film or digital. Here’s a summary of the major difference between the two platforms:

● Distance to subject: The CP990 has to get very close to the subject to get a full frame shot, and the smaller the subject, the closer the camera has be. How close? In the essay on photographing insects with the Pentax *ist-D, I demonstrated a full frame shot of a fishing fly taken at a distance of abbout 12 inches. To fill the frame on the CP990 with the same fly, the camera has to be about 1.5 inches away. That’s close!

You’d expect that having to get that close to the subject would result in most of them getting scared away. This can be a challenge but since you are able to hold the camera away from your body (see the point below) its not as much of an issue as you might expect. I guess a relatively small camera coming in towards a bug is less threatening that a large camera held at eye level by a person.

To get this close, the camera must be set to macro mode. Many prosumer digicams have a close up mode, and some more useful than others. If your camera does not have a closeup mode, you can try using close up filters or reverse mounting a 50mm lens (from a 35mm SLR) onto the lens. 

● Handling of the camera: Working with the Coolpix 990 is a totally different experience than working with an SLR. This is true for many prosumer digitals. Since you can use the LCD to compose the shot, you are liberated from having to keep your eye to the finder. This means that you can get shots anywhere that you can reach.

A few days ago I commented on being unable to photograph a black damselfly that had flow higher and higher as I approached it. Had I been using the Coolpix it would not have been a problem – as long as it was in reach I could have gotten the shot.

Here are two examples where this kind of camera handling has come in handy. In the case of the Eastern Tailed Blue (‘Lil Blue’) above, the insect had worked its way into a cluster dense vegetation. I was able to snake my hand, with the camera, in after it. Because the distance between the butterfly and the camera was so small (the butterfly was less and an inch in size) I was able to postion the camera free of any intervening branches from the plant. As a result, using the Coolpix resulted in an insect photograph that simply would not have been possible using an SLR.

This blye dasher dragonfly is another example of a shot that would have been impossible with an SLR. In this case the dragonfly was up high, perched on a very tall plant stalk. I’m over 6 feet tall and can easlily reach up to 8 feet or so, but I was standing on my tip toes to get this shot. If it had to hold the camera at eye level to use a finder, I would have need to bring a ladder to get this!

● Depth of Field: This term refers to the area within the photograph that appears to be in focus. As you move in for a close up, the depth of field gets smaller. Without going into the mathematics, this is because depth of field is a function a magnification. The more you magnify your subject, the less depth of field. Depth of field is increase by working at smaller aperture sizes – the more you stop down, the greater the depth of field. Of course – the more you stop down, the less light that passes through to the camera, and the longer the shutter speed.

This creates the classic problem for macro photographers. It’s always a struggle to get enough depth of field to get the critical elements of the subject in focus, while maintaining a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action of the subject.

Fortunately the Nikon Coolpix 990, and other prosumer digitals, do very well in regards to depth of field. The reason is because these cameras use a very small sensor to record the image. For example, the sensor in the Coolpix 990 is approximately 7 x 5.5 mm in size – a mere fraction of the size of a 35mm film frame (35 x 24 mm) or of the ‘APS’ sized sensors in digital SLR’s (about 22 x 15 mm).

Because the sensor is so small, the subject is magnified less, and the depth of field at any given f stop is much greater. The result is that images taken at f8 or f11 have a DOF comparable to f 16 or smaller on an SLR. This means that you can shoot with the lens more open, enjoy a faster shutter speed, and also be able to retain a usable amount of depth of field.

But, this can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand its great to be able to get a close-up with the whole subject in focus, and the increased depth of field is a real boon for very small subjects shot at very close distances. On the other hand, if you want to isolate your subjects by throwing the background out of focus, the tremendous depth of field in prosumer digitals can become a hindrance. In insect photography this is especially the case for larger subjects – like large butterflies or dragonflies – where the degree of magnification of the subject is very small, so the depth of field extends out for long distances. Here is an exampleof a shot were the backgroun - though quite far away - just never got burred out. Though the shot is acceptable, the distracting background is a real detriment.

● Image Quality: My Nikon Coolpix 990 is a pretty old camera (introduced about 6 years ago!) Since it was introduced, digital camera manufacturers have made huge advances in image quality, improving the color accuracy, decreasing the noise levels, increasing sharpness, and increasing the range of light the camera can capture. Despite its age, I’ve be consistently happy with the results of the Coolpix 990 at ISO 100. (At higher settings the amount of digital noise becomes a problem.) 

Just like the sensor size affects depth of field, there are some aspects of image quality that are also affected by sensor size. For example, the sensor in the CP990 has about half the number of pixels as the sensor in my digital SLR, but the physical size of the sensor is about on third of that in the SLR. Obviously, this means that the individual photo sensors in the Coolpix are smaller and packed more tightly.

This physical aspect of the sensor has two effects on image quality, both of which are observable. For one thing, the small sensors can resolve more detail. In typical shooting situations, the advantage of being able to resolve more detail is wasted, simply because the lens is projecting such a small image onto the sensor, there isn’t a lot of detail there to be captured. But when shooting macros, with very high magnification and relatively simple subjects, this ability to capture detail is a great boon. My Coolpix, for example, seems to be much better at resolving the individual cells in insects compound eyes, compared to either film or my digital SLR.

On the flip side, the smaller sensor size usually results in increased noise. More light hits the larger individual photo cells in larger sensors, and so the signal (amount of light) to noise (amount of background interference) ratio is greater. The camera’s microprocessor can better figure out what is noise, and what is the actual photograph, and the result is a much less noisy image.

So in terms of image quality there is a real trade off, between the improved detail and resolution in the prosumer digital vs the increased noise. Personally, as it applies to insect photography, I’ve been satisfied with the results of the Coolpix 990, and suspect that more modern digicams will produce much better images still.

● Lighting: The ability take control over lighting is a key element in most forms of photography. When shooting static subjects, this can be accomplished with diffusers and reflectors. When shooting dynamic subjects – and nothing is more dynamic that insects on the wing – this usually calls for flash.

Unfortunately, I see this as the Achilles’ heal of the prosumer digital camera for insect close-ups. When using an SLR, the working distance between the subject and camera makes it relatively easy to use a flash to illuminate the subject. As noted in the earlier essay on insect photography with a DSLR, when using a 200mm macro lens and focusing in on an insect just 1 inch in size, the working distance between the front of the lens and the insect is approximately 1 foot. When shooting large butterflies or dragonflies, 2 or 3 feet of working room is the norm. This room make it possible to position a flash in the best place possible to illuminate the subject and close background.

The very small working distances of a prosumer digicam greatly complicate the use of flash. For the smallest subjects, those within just an inch or two of the camera, its almost impossible to squeeze in the light of a flash at an angle that works. The problem is not so pronounced with larger subjects, but even then you are working with inches of space vs. feet.

That’s not to say that it can’t be done – it’s just that the working distance makes it more complicated. Personally, I never setup a flash system for the Coolpix 990, and instead relied on diffusers or my own shadow to soften the light enough to get a good shot. I also would shoot on days where the natural light was bright but diffuse – high overcast days. Sometimes this resulted in shots that were too flat, but often times just using the diffuser worked well:

That stands in stark contrast to the SLR world, where you have great flexibility in flash setup. For example, I shot this image on film using a dual macro flash setup – a 75 / 25 % power ratio between two flashes positioned to the left and the right of the lens. It was an unagainly and awkward system – something I ultimately quit using in the field – but it remains an option due to the working room afforded by SLR setups.

I think this covers the main aspects of my experiences with the Nikon Coolpix 990 for insect ph

otography, and how they compare to using an SLR. In any event, as mentioned at the start of this essay, some of my best insect photgrafy has been accomplished with the CP 990, so if you have a prosumer digital on hand and are interested in shooting bugs, by all means make use of it. With the right technique, it should produce first rate images.

Today I ventured out to the Allegan Forest, hoping to get a few good insect photographs. Its been warm in west Michigan these last few days, and while the heat wave seems to have passed, I was optimistic that the warm weather would finally release many species of insects from their torpor.

Overall, things have improved, and the number and availability of subjects today was much better than just a few days ago. We now have many dragonflies – Whitetails, Pondhawks, Meadowhawks – plus numerous butterflies – Spicebush, Tiger Swallowtail, and Wood Nymphs. And the more mundane species – the flies and beetles and moths – are also out in force.

My first stop of the day was to a favorite field off 44th street. This is the field where I recently encountered the Olympia Marble Wing. I last visited it just a few days ago, but as with all tings in the natural world it is constantly changing. Today I was surprised to find the first few blossoms of coreopsis and vetch among the greening grasses. In a few weeks this field will be a haven for Fritillaries and Spicebush butterflies, along with dragonflies, bees, and other insects. This is also a haven for Indigo Buntings and other songbirds, who nest in the cottonwood saplings that line the edge of this field.

Whatever the future may hold, today things were dead here. I ate my lunch, and moved on to another location.

Since the lupine is in bloom, I decided to visit a recently cleared area that is being re-established as an oak savanna. Last year the blue lupine was thick throughout this area, and covered what seemed to be several acres. This year there was much less of this wildflower, with scattered but sizeable clusters of the plant popping up at random in the field. I pulled over and hiked down a two track into the woods that surrounds this field.

I was impressed at how much grass grew in the forest. In some clearings, I thought that my lawn at home should look so good. Unlike many other natural areas where native plants abound, the Allegan Forest still harbors the remains of the imported plants that previous inhabitants brought.

It was in this clearing that I spotted a the dragonfly shown at the top of this post, along with several darners, twelve spotted skimmers, and a few whitetails. All of these insects perched low, and the shot I got of the black meadowhawk was taken laying on the ground, since it was perched just a few inches up.

I ventured a bit further into the woods, found a curious artifact (the seat board from an outhouse) and moved on. I then stopped a short distance away in along the edge of an oak savanna that is the home of many Karner Blue butterflies. Its still pretty early to see any Karner Blues, but American Coppers, various dragonflies, and other interesting insects were on hand. I snapped one shot of a blue butterfly on lupine – perhaps a Karner Blue, perhaps not – and proceeded to encounter a female Pondhawk dragonfly devouring a small blue butterfly – again, perhaps a Karner, perhaps not.

As I made my way through the field I also stumbled upon a few orange moths. There were pretty interesting, with their striking blue eyes, but after combing through my field guides and online I’m at a loss to identify them.

Every spring it seems that I re-learn the same lessons. Today I neglected to wear a hat, and despite wafting some OFF around my head, the blackflies were quick to land and bite. I always think of wearing a hat as protection against the heat – but in reality its most valuable in protecting against noxious biting insects.

I also missed about 2 square inches on the back of my left hand when applying the insect repellent. Silly me – but I swear every black fly in the forest found that spot!

Technical details – all shots taken with the standard insect setup, Pentax *ist-D and A* 200mm f4 macro. A few more out takes from the day: