Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

I’ve been shooting a lot of B&W 35mm film these days and last weekend I though I’d shoot out my last roll of Kodak HIE High Speed Infrared film. This has been sitting in the deep freeze for some time - expired in February 2009 - and it seemed to be time to use it. SO I loaded it into the trusty Pentax LX and screwed a deep red filter onto the FA 20-35mm f4 lens.

Here are the best two shots of the roll. I have to confess that I am a little disappointed - I had hoped that the last roll of this great film would result in something really interesting, but not…

Well - at least the film seemed to be fine even 4+ years out of date. I shot it at ISO 200, bracketed most of the shots, and developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 15 minutes. (The Rodinal is probably about as old as the film.) It was definitely too dense and over developed which puzzles me, since I’ve used that developer and time frequently in the past. Vuescan’s multiple exposure setting (formerly long exposure pass) saved the highlights, even though each batch of 12 exposures took many hours to scan.

So - this film is gone for me. I have some Rollie IR that is also getting old that I need to burn up, and somewhere here I have some old odd-ball IR surveillance film that someone sent me a few years back that I need to use as well, plus there’s some rolls of 120 SFX down in that deep freeze… So I guess my IR film days are not totally over, but my time with HIE is finished.

Here are a couple of dragonflies and one damselfly from a trip to the Allegan forest yesterday. Click on any image for a larger file.

First - what I think is a Carolina Saddlebags, though the Red Saddlebags is very similar. I do not see the large “window” in the saddlebag on the wings that the Red would typically have, so my guess is the Carolina.

Here is another shot, not as good, but that shows the coloration on the face and wings a little better:

And then a common 12 Spotted Skimmer, which were out in abundance over the pond I was visiting:

Lastly, some sort of Bluet Damselfly. I used a different technique for this shot and focus stacked 16 separate images together to get better depth of field. I have not tried this in the field before, and it actually seemed to work pretty well:

Shadows cast by wire clothes hangers….

The Signature Artists’ Cooperative will be exhibiting in Holland, Michigan this summer. Signature In Summer will be at the Holland Area Arts Council from June 11 - August 31, 2013:

I’ll be exhibiting two prints from the Visitation Project, which I have been quietly loading up in another blog here. First physical prints ever from this series. I will also be at the opening reception. Learn more about Signature at signature-artist.com

Here we are in June already. Despite the cold spring, by now the dragonflies must be out. Last weekend - the last weekend of May - I visited a familiar field looking for the winged devils. I found a few, and took their pictures. This morning, first weekend in June, I noticed a common whitetail buzzing around my house. It kept landing on my car which I took to be a suggestion that I should get out to the country and look for dragonflies - so I did just that.

Here is a roundup of my first 2013 dragonfly photos - for each, click on the image for a lager file. All photos taken with a Pentax K-5, A*200mm macro lens, and DIY macro flash bracket.

Here is a female Twelve Spotted Skimmer from last weekend, first dragonfly shot of 2013. You may know that I go to great pains to get these shots, and in this case it was more painful than usual. The insect settled down in a clump of eastern prickly pear cactus, and despite all my best precautions I wound up sitting on a cactus, landing my elbow in a cactus, and pressing my hand on a cactus as I went to stand up. Prickly pear is more annoying than dangerous - the needles just stick in your outer skin till something happens to push them straight in, and then they just make for a tiny annoying prick. But for several days after taking these shots I’d settle into a chair or put on a garment and feel that annoying prick as a needle finally found its way home.

So - two shots in the prickly pear:

Here is another dragonfly form last weekend - I am not sure what it is. Body markings look like a Spiny or Beaverpond Baskettail, and it did have some green in the eyes like a Beaverpond. But, I don’t see any indication in my field guides that either species has brown tinted wings.

Then, this afternoon, I returned to the northern edge of the Allegan Forest looking for more subjects. As soon as I stepped out of the car I encountered several blue dashers. Let’s start with males showing the characteristic blue abdomen:

And some females or immature males (they are similar in appearance):

These Clubtails (family: Gomphidae) are typically abundant in these northern fields in the spring and early summer.

I’m not sure what species of Gomphidae these clubtails are, but they are fierce hunters. Here is one devouring an Eastern Pondhawk - itself a large species that also preys on other dragonflies.

As a parting shot - a female Common Whitetail, perched above dried leaves from last fall:

I travel a bit for my job and this week spent a little time in West Virginia. They got deer there like Carter’s got pills. Yesterday evening I took a few snapshots of some of the deer on the grounds where I was staying, they were fairly tame but wouldn’t really let me get all that close.

I got the Pentax Q to use for business trips and have put together what I think is a pretty nice kit that covers everything form an ultra wide angle to a 280 telephoto, and still fits in a bag that at best would hold a DSLR and standard zoom.

These shots were taken with the Q and the 06 Telephoto lens, which is really a remarkable optic. I must confess that I introduced an element of incompetence in that I accidentally enabled the build in 2 stop neutral density filter in the lens - great for allowing wide open shots in bright sun but not so great in end-of-day light. So the shots were taken at a little higher ISO than they could have been and are not as sharp as they could have been… Well, I aint so good at showing off this fine camera, but I do love shooting with it.

Click on the pictures for larger ones.