29 Sep 11. Those of you who keep track of the images I send will likely recognize this shot as being very similar to one I shared a couple of months back. It is in fact another from a series of shots taken of the same insect on the same piece of clover. This time I've zoomed in a bit closer and done significantly more cropping out of the green background. The initial impact will be that the bee and clover are much larger when in fact they are only slightly larger, the effect being attained by forcing the clover head with bee to full fill the frame. If your original image is sharp enough to withstand a large amount of cropping, this is a cheap trick for simulating the use of a long telephoto. You won't get quite the distance compression that is a tell tail sign of a long tele, but for images of this type it doesn't really matter. This approach is best accomplished on a tripod with a subject that is not moving else the incorporation of a very fast shutter speed to ensure critical sharpness in at least one plane of the image. ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /10.
30 Sep 11. As I was scrolling through the files for sharing, I noticed for the first time, although I've done this many times prior, that one set of originals and modified demonstrated very nicely, albeit in an exaggerated form, the texture and contours of the plant. I was actually a bit surprised as I'd never really noticed it before even though I've looked at the images many times. Sorta suggesting to me, at least, that there may be far more to see than what we observe in a casual look After spending a few minutes going over the creative image (I'm sharing both this time), I went back and studied the original more carefully. When I did I was amazed at how much more I saw in the plant. See if you find the same thing. ISO 400; 1/500 sec @ f / 6.3.
