Honey Bee on Shephards Needle

Lately it's been really busy at work and between that and running 3 photo clubs and trying to get a wedding business started, I haven't had much time to go out shooting. Actually, I haven't had much time for anything.

One good thing is that I can always find subject matter in my own back yard. I spotted this Honey Bee hanging on for dear life trying to sip this nectar. They seem to prefer the nectar of yellow flowers. At least that's how it seems to me. I usually can find bees around yellow or white flowers with yellow stamen. It just might be my imagination, but that's the way I see it; and I've photographed lots of them.

I have to keep my distance when I'm photographing bees and most insects because I'm deathly allergic to their stings. Due to the allergy, I have to shoot them with a fairly long lens so I don't get too close. Sometimes, the lens has enough magnification to keep the photo full frame, rather than having to crop in to get close.

This one was shot at about 1:00 in the afternoon. Tricky light, most of the time, but it was pretty cloudy and I got lucky that I didn't have more of an exposure latitude problem. The settings used for this photo was a shutter speed of 1/1000 to stop movement at F5.6 to sufficiently blur the background at 0 eV (exposure compensation). I used an ISO of 400 to guarantee that I'd have a fast enough shutter speed with partial metering at 250mm with my 55-250mm lens. As it stands, I didn't have to crop it. I was lucky enough to be able to get a close enough focus by shooting at an angle from up above him.

Cassius Blue Butterfly

Another little cutie from my back yard. This one is a Cassius Blue Butterfly. The positive ID is by the eye spots on the wings that are circled with yellow/orange. The Cassius Blue is from the Gossamer-wing family and is very small. Its wing span is only 5/8". It can be found in central and southern Florida in fields, woodland edges and residential areas. It prefers Leadwort for food.

Here he is sipping on a Shepards Needle. These daisy-like flowers can be found in most fields.

I especially like making photos of these tiny butterflies because of their beauty, and the challenge. Sometimes the hunt is just as satisfying as the capture. These little guys don't rest on flowers very long. They're fast flyers and like to flit from flower to flower. I've found that if I wait long enough, they'll come back to the same flower over and over.

Settings used for this shot on a bright sunny day are 1/500 of a second to stop all motion of both the flower and the butterfly, and F7.1 the sharpest aperture for my favorite lens. To get the fast shutter speed I moved the ISO to 400 even though it was sunny. It was around 4:00 pm so the sun was beginning to make its descent and was a bit lower in the sky, bringing out the detail in the flower and the butterfly. I used partial metering to be sure the butterfly would be properly exposed and -1/3 eV so I wouldn't blow out the white in his body. In post-processing, I burned in the flower petals just a tad. With my 55-250mm telephoto lens zoomed all the way out to 250mm, I was able to get enough magnification to show the butterfly fairly large in the frame and it also allowed me to sufficiently blur the background. There was no cropping in this shot. It is full-frame.

North Beach, Ft Desoto

Last night, I went to a conference at North Beach in Ft Desoto in Tierra Verde, FL. As I walked along the beach, I couldn't help but notice the quality of the light. There's nothing like the late afternoon light to bring out the best in a photograph.

I spotted this lone umbrella between the sand dunes. There was quite a bit of beach stuff all around, and the people it belonged to were no where in sight. They were most likely enjoying Ft Desoto's warm, summer water. If you've never been to Florida in the Gulf in the summertime, you would not be able to imagine how nice the water is. It's almost like taking a bath. It was a comfortable 84 deg F. No wonder the people weren't around their umbrella.

I walked around this umbrella trying to find a decent vantage point to make my photo without all the beach stuff around it, hoping all the time that the people who owned wouldn't return to spoil my photo. As luck would have it, I finally found a place to stand where the stuff wasn't showing--just a lone float and an umbrella. Perfect!

I made my image, satisfied with knowing that I had the perfect shot to show what I was feeling in my mind when I first spotted that place with that beautiful, warm, summer light.

My camera was already set at ISO 200, and I shot it at F4.5 at 1/200 sec. I probably should've shot it at F8 or higher, but it looked fine in the viewfinder, except for some dark shadows that I knew if I didn't add a little bit of light, they'd have gone black. So, I added 1 stop eV, and using about 79mm on my trusty 55-250mm favorite walk-around lens, fired the shutter to make a very nice shot. I was lucky to have that sand dune hide all the stuff around the umbrella.

It's times like this that makes me happy that I'm a photographer and can record beautiful scenes like this one. Florida is truly paradise.

Unknown Flower

Today my friends and I went to the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo for our weekly get-together. We originally planned to go to Gatorland in Orlando until Stacy reminded us that this was Spring Break time, Good Friday and Easter weekend. Traffic in Orlando and the theme parks would be brutal. Since we already live here, we can go to Gatorland anytime, so we opted to stay in Tampa Bay for our weekly shoot.

I've taken photos of this flower before and was able to identify it, but wouldn't you know, the name just slipped my mind. If anyone reading this blog can ID it, I'd be most grateful.

I love the softness of the cone-type top of this and the little yellow blossoms at the mid section. The color combination is gorgeous. I'd love to try to grow these in my yard, but without a name it would be difficult to find them at the nursery.

I think they might be some kind of Bromeliad, but they also resemble Heliconias too. A Google search didn't provide any answers, either.

Tomorrow we're taking a trolley tour in Tampa again. This always proves to be a fun time. I'm looking forward to it.