Boston Museum of Science: Butterflies | Nature Photographer

Over the weekend I visited the Boston Museum of Science with my family. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip there, and I took quite a few photos and videos. One of the highlights for me was our visit to the indoor butterfly garden. My daughter and I had a wonderful time there, watching the butterflies all around us!

Tulip Macro Shots

Sometimes I like to challenge myself to take a "good" photograph not using my DSLR. Yes, gear and lenses make a big difference, and I can do so much more with them...but it's also more to carry around, more editing to need to do (if I shoot in RAW), and, well, the lens on my iPhone 5S isn't half bad either. With the magnetic lenses that I received as a present a while ago, I can do even more.

For the Weekly Photo Project this week, the theme is "A Bug's Eye View". Today my husband very nicely purchased tulips for my daughter and I, so I thought: where would an insect me attracted to, but the flowers? So I added the macro lens to my iPhone camera, and with a small amount of editing afterwards, this is what I have!

Macro photography: Trees

For a photo project this week, I needed to photograph "something from a tree". While walking the dog early one morning, I saw drops of water hanging from the nearly bare tree branches and had to go back with my camera. Using my 85mm lens, set at the widest aperture (f/1.8) I captured a few macro shots; these proved to be my favorites.

Practicing with a macro lens

At the end of August I was invited to one of my client's sites for a one-day meeting. I didn't have too much to do that day, just listen to the talks and see the facility. It turns out that the man who put the meeting together also enjoys photography, and had seen my site. He brought all of his gear with him, and gave me full license to play! He's got my dream camera (the Canon 5D Mark III), and wow was that fun to get to use! He also had a 100mm macro lens (the one that I really want to buy next), and in addition to taking photos on his camera, I put the macro lens on my camera to see how well it worked. I am definitely a  fan of this lens now, and wanted to share a couple of my favorite shots that I took while messing around.

Flower farm

Here's Part II of summer photos!
Back in December 2013 I posted photos that I took at Great Falls National Park, as I felt like with the cold weather and snow we could use some summery photos. As we're now even further into the depths of winter, I think these bright, beautiful flowers are just what is needed!

Korean figurines

I'm hoping to take a night off from the photo editing, as I anticipate being home for the next couple of days and should have lots of time to get some editing done! So, as I just finished paying bills, and I had this post all set to go, I thought tonight would be a nice night to share it.

Last month while I was doing my 30 day photo challenge, one of the subjects was "Close Up". I used some macro filters that my husband gave me last year, screwed onto my 70-300mm lens, to take a few photos of these adorable Korean figurines given to me by an old colleague who got them for me in Korea. So very cute!

Macro photography: Ice Storm

Last night we were hit by an ice storm, along with most of the rest of the Mid-Atlantic and North East. Leesburg was right on the edge of the ice/rain, and what started as rain last night quickly turned to ice and led to cancelled school and everything glowing white this morning from the coating of ice. After (carefully) walking the dog, I went back outside to grab a few photos before work. I couldn't walk too far from the house for fear of slipping, so I took these shots in front of our house.

 

Flower macro photography: Roses

I posted a couple of months ago about my first foray into macro photography, using the inverted lens trick I had read about online. I was pretty happy with the photos i took with the hydrangea blossoms, but definitely wanted to practice a bit more. A couple of weeks ago, my husband purchased a dozen of beautiful pink roses for me, so...take two of flower macro photography!

First try at Macro photography

I think macro photography is fascinating - for any who don't know what it is, just do a quick google image search and you'll see some amazing close-up shots, such as this one of a cat's eye. How amazing is that?! To accomplish this type of shot, there are all kinds of specialty lenses you can buy (there's one I have my eye on that's about $400, which I can't quite swing right now, much less the much higher price ones that are out there!), or you can get ring extension kits to add to an existing lens to allow focus that close up. There is a "trick" to macro photography that you can do without any of these and I've been dying to try it; I finally had time this weekend to give it a shot with some hydrangea flowers I recently received.