Productive Outings

Finally I am starting to have some productive photography trips.  The last few I have been on were great.  The fall foliage is at its peak and the scenery is absolutely beautiful.   My most recent trip was the most productive.  I made my way to the Bashakill Wetlands and was hoping to find some warblers and other fall migrant birds.  I did get a glimpse at a few of them but didn’t manage a good photo.  Once I decided that birding was not going well, I changed to photographing insects.  I managed a couple shots of dragonflies and butterflies.  Most didn’t come out due to the harsh natural lighting.  There were no clouds and it made it very hard to control lighting.  After a while I remembered I had extension tubes in my camera bag, so I put two of the three on.  That’s when I saw this little jumping spider crawling up a boulder.  The spider was probably about the size of a pencil eraser.  The spider didn’t sit still very long so I only managed a few shots before he hopped off into the grass and disappeared.  I was pleased with the shot but I wish I could have gotten closer.  

While I was home after this I realized that maybe if I added the extension tubes and then attached my small lens reversed it might actually get me more magnification than I had with my 250 mm with the extension tubes on.  I plan on running a test to see if adding extension tubes to a reversed lens lets you stay a little further from the subject.  I’m hoping this is the case because with the reversed lens you have to get so close to the subject that it’s almost impossible to do, because the wild animals don’t stay when you get that close.  I hope that the upcoming week is as good as this one.  I hope everyone enjoys the photographs.  Until next time.