An encounter with Hummingbird hawk-moths

Years ago - September 2013 to be precise - I took one, very lucky, shot of a Hummingbird hawk-moth, Macroglossum stellatarum,  Here's the shot:

Lucky in the sense that I was photographing this Ceratostigma willmottianum in my garden and the moth appeared, paused briefly to drink nectar, and then flew off, giving me time for only the one shot.  Lucky in that I had the Sigma 105mm macro on my, at the time, Canon 60D.  Lucky in that I was working at ISO 400, f6.3, and 1/200 sec and I somehow managed to get the eye, flower and proboscis reasonably sharp.  

Unfortunately everything else was blurred.  No wonder it's never sold.

I've seen these occasional UK summer migrant moths a few times since but never again managed to successfully photograph them.  Until last Monday.

I was working at The Garden House, collecting my usual social media shots.  I'd temporarily fitted the 100-400mm to the OM-1 to capture some nesting Jackdaws in the roof space of the old bothy behind the Walled Garden. I had bird detect on, continuous autofocus and sequential shooting set, ISO 1600 selected and the lens wide open at f6.3, giving a shutter speed between 1/000 and 2/1000 sec.  I happened to be near a patch of Nepeta (catmint) when a Hummingbird hawk-moth came to feed.

And then the fun began.  

Like hummingbirds these little moths flit about in unpredictable direction, wings blurred with the speed of their motion, briefly hovering in front of a flower to insert their long proboscis and drink the nectar.  Above all, they never settle while feeding.  Blink and they're gone.  Surely the harshest test of an autofocus system possible.  I had a lot of failures.  As evidenced by these three shots:

At first sight they look quite reasonable (I've cropped the images to square format only to cut out some extraneous content at the sides)  Now look at a 100% crop of the last image.

Not quite the success it appeared to be on first examination.  The swift, unpredictable, darting flight was producing real problems in attaining and keeping focus on the moth.  The others are slightly better but they've still missed focus.

But gradually, and aided by the arrival of a second moth*, I started getting a few better shots.

Sharper, more detailed and, most importantly, with better focus accuracy.  There's still the problem of wing blur but I didn't have enough light to raise the shutter speed to further freeze motion.  

In the end I finished with 3 shots I was reasonably happy with, and another shot (#1 in the final sequence) that was passable out of 46 in total.  The 100-400mm autofocus is just fast enough for the job though I suspect the PRO series lenses such as my 40-150mm might have been a bit faster and more capable of holding focus.  But you work with what you've got and an unpredictable small insect in flight would test any camera and lens combination.

An enjoyable experience.  I'd have continued but the moths took off for pastures anew and I didn't see them again.

* How do I know there were two moths?  Look at the backs.  One is fully covered, one distinctly worn where the scales have been rubbed away.

Red Kites at Gigrin Farm

Red kite in flight

A few days away in September last year gave Maria and I the opportunity visit Gigrin Farm, near Welshpool in Wales.  The farm is a feeding station for Red Kites, Milvus milvus, a UK bird of prey that had almost disappeared.  By providing supplementary feeding to a few of the remaining kites, initially at Gigrin, and, later, other locations, the populations have increased dramatically and they are now a far more common sight away from their mid Wales stronghold.

Gigrin provides a wonderful opportunity to see these graceful birds en masse.  Feeding starts daily at 3:00pm during the summer months, on a meadow surrounded by an arc of hides.  The birds know this and they start to circle overhead up to an hour beforehand, increasing in numbers as feeding time approaches.  The sky can get crowded as feeding time approaches!

At the time my longest lens was the Olympus 70-300mm f4-5.6.  Lightweight, with a good deal of reach for its small size, I soon found it wasn't really fast enough to acquire focus on these circling birds.  Out came the 40-150mm F2.8 PRO + 1.4x teleconverter and that stayed on the OM-1 throughout.  Bird detect on, of course.  I started getting better shots of individual circling birds though even here I've had to crop.

ISO 800, f4, 210mm, 1/3200 sec

Finally, at 3:00PM prompt the tractor with chopped meat arrived and distribution could begin.

It should be emphasised that these are wild birds, opportunistic scavengers by nature, and always on the look out for carrion.  Gigrin farm merely provides them with some supplemental feeding.  In return they provide a spectacle.

On cue, the first birds swoop down to grab a morsel, rapidly followed by a constant stream as more and more flock in to feed, individual birds jostling for position.

       

At times it's actually difficult to lock focus on an individual bird.  There are too many for the bird detection to settle on one and keep tracking.  But no system is perfect and I got enough good shots to have a selection.

In general the 40-150mm + 1.4x was a good choice.  The birds were close and I often didn't need the full 210mm to get a shot.  I did make one mistake.  It was raining.  Light rain but dull light and I should have taken the ISO up from my 800 setting to 1600 or more to get better sharpness for the in flight shots.  1/1250sec isn't really enough.

Examined at 100% both the above shots are lacking a little in critical sharpness around the wingtips - though still good enough to put on sale.  Every shoot is a learning experience.

A thoroughly enjoyable day for both of us and one I'd heartily recommend to even non bird watchers.  Though, hopefully, you'll have better weather and light.

 Photographing gardens and flowers in the rain

Misty conditions in The Garden House Quarry Garden in pouring rain

There's a local saying (or possibly I made it up) that describes Dartmoor and its environs.  "If you can see the hills it's going to rain.  If you can't it's raining."  West Devon gets a lot of rain.  Prevailing westerlies bring it in from the Atlantic on a regular basis, sometimes for days or even weeks on end.  Which means that I frequently have to photograph flowers and gardens in the rain if I'm to get the regular weekly shots I need for social media posts for The Garden House.  

Equipment isn't the problem.  My Olympus/OM systems garden gear is weatherproofed and I have no qualms in using it in even pouring rain.  Just take plenty of dry lens cloths to keep the front of the lens clear..

The problem is the quality and quantity of the rain.  Heavy rain is generally a no go.  The light is dreary, vegetation is flattened, flowers bend under the weight of raindrops and, of course, it's physically unpleasant for the poor photographer.  Yes it's possible to get shots - the Quarry Garden image above is an example - but it's not one I enjoyed taking.

Better is lighter rain, particularly when imparting a misty background to more distant parts of the image.

Misty background in a view across the lake

Best of all is light, misty rain (mizzle down here in Devon).  The light is soft, saturating colours, while the fine droplets of rain don't weigh down flowers and vegetation but apply a sparkling sheen to everything while still giving a misty background.

Misty rain in The Acer Glade

Similar considerations apply to flower portraits.  It is possible to get good shots in heavy rain, as illustrated by this shot of Sagittaria and Aponogetum in a lake.

But that was special case.  Aquatics aren't really bothered by rain.

More likely is that during and even after heavy rain the outlines of flowers will blur, especially ones with more complex floral structures.  Though it can look good on foliage, as with this Begonia 'Red Robin', out for its summer holiday.

It's certainly possible to shake the excess water off the flower(s) - but is it worth it when the raindrops produce an attractive patterning to the image.  The only problem with shots like these is specular highlights on the drops.  These can be dodged out in post if they cause a problem but it does add an extra step to the processing workflow.

Galanthus 'Das Gelb von Ei'

Shaking off the excess water isn't always possible.  I'd been eyeing up this more distant snowdrop shot while the rain was falling but it was inaccessible.  I had to return later after the rain had stopped and a breeze had removed the excess moisture before I could take it.  There are still enough drops on the petals to make it an effective rain shot but not enough to bow the snowdrop heads or blur the flower features.

Best of all is when conditions are just right, with soft, misty rain that allows micro droplets to gather on the surface of petals...

Moraea alticola

...rim the edge of a bloom...

Stewartia sinensis

...or coat the protruding stamens of this white Azalea.

In the rain photography of plants and gardens has its discomforts.  We've all known the dubious pleasure of rain running down the back of our neck.  But to get shots that stand out a little suffering is worthwhile.  Isn't it?