Night Traffic

Last night I affixed my 58mm wide angle attachment to the 18-55 kit lens that came with my 300D and attempted star trails. This lens is unfortunately slow and has flaring issues when it comes to lights thus I don't use it. I didn't quite get the results I would prefer but the range increase was satisfactory. Haze was an issue as well but overall I look forward to what might be achieved with a true wide angle. The first image features the ISS carving across from behind cloud as well as numerous flaring objects. The second and third images feature a large aircraft probably coming out of Chicago that was reflecting light at just the right angle to be exceptionally bright until it banked towards the west.

Marginally Severe Squall Line

The zone between the gust front running well out ahead of the heavy precipitation is where the little measure of photographic opportunity could be found on Saturday night.

Recent Nature

In spite of the intensifying drought conditions which have resulted in far fewer than normal animal and insect observations, I've been out though namely just exploring new areas in Moultrie County. An unplanned visit to Scovill Zoo on the 12th per Ava's request also netted a few shot opportunities. Despite being in a protected environment, many of the outdoor animals we saw weren't enjoying the drought anymore than we were.

Near Sullivan IL, no idea what species this is.


Lancet Clubtail and a very successful first.


Eastern Pondhawk


Successful reverse ring macro.


Scovill Zoo, Decatur IL


Mr. Kipling (according to Ava)


Axolotl


Leopard Tortoise


Galapagos Tortoise


West Okaw State Fish and Wildlife Area




Green Heron vs. Painted Turtle at a nearby pond, would've been nice to be closer lol.

Emergent Dragonfly and Co.

While down by the Sangamon River with Ava and her cousin on Tuesday, I spotted a dragonfly appearing to have been recently emerged. By emerged I mean that it was transforming from larva to adult and was in the process of developing its coloration as well as strength. Despite scouring my identification resources, I am not 100% sure of the species (likely Blue Dasher) but it was among the most docile and approachable dragonflies I've photographed yet.







Prior to the above, I spotted a juvenile softshell turtle that was roughly the size of an Oreo cookie.


I also tried my hand again with the reverse ring only to fail miserably. This was extremely overexposed and corrected as best as I could in Photoshop. When using a reverse ring, you lose all f stop control and are basically shooting wide open at 0.0. Being the noob that I am anymore, I neglected to compensate for the zero f stop by raising my shutter speed so this little "jumper" nestled in the fold on my pant leg came out like garbage. At least you can get an idea of the aberration-free detail you can image via hair and fiber versus the old way I prefer. The only thing I am confident about at this point with reverse ring is that there will be more failure to come.

Unexpected Saturday

Sitting around somewhat bored this past Saturday afternoon, I decided to take Ava and her cousin up to Weldon Springs. Though there were storms in the area, I did not expect to see anything...





Now at Weldon Springs Park, Clinton IL facing S towards Decatur.


A Great Blue Heron flew over so I quickly switched out lenses.


Nearby tree showing obvious signs of somewhat recent lightning strike.














This is significant in that it is the first reverse ring macro shot that I am remotely satisfied with despite still being sub par and soft. Simply put, it is a device that enables you to invert the lens on the camera so to shoot backwards through it. It's an ideal technique in that you can get much smaller than with the 58mm attachment I typically use but I simply haven't made time to become comfortable with using it. I actually got real close on the head but those did not come out well so I did not bother. I was also in shadow which didn't exact help the situation either. This Eastern Tailed Blue could fit comfortably on a dime.


Tried shooting reverse ring on this guy but wasn't feeling it so I switched back to the usual 58mm piece. By now it was becoming late and we were getting hungry so I didn't exactly try my best but for being the size of a popcorn kernel, I thought it was still worth showing.

Energetic Boundary Time Lapses

This past Monday we had a slow moving frontal boundary drop through. It didn't amount to much in the way of severe weather but did produce a few lines of highly charged electrical storms. The initial batch drifting along up near I-80 presented an opportunity for shooting time lapse through the 300mm lens which I had not attempted yet. The first image though uneventful is a 6 minute stack with the storm over 90 miles away to the N of Peoria (I was just N of Decatur IL). The video at bottom shows this as well as other stills in motion.

This is five frames shot over one minute of a cell W of the Illinois river near Macomb IL. Hindsight being what it is, I should have spent more time with this as it spat out a few brilliant clear air bolts. It is not in the video.

14 minute stack with the same line to the N through the regular lens a little while later.

Around 11PM while waiting for outflow to pass from the now exhausted line to the north and hoping for a moonlit roll cloud to shoot time lapse on, new development fired to my immediate SE. Taking interest in the first CU to start throwing sparks and especially for being so compact, explosive development would quickly initiate thus providing an incredible time lapse opportunity. Though I ended up with numerous stand alone single images such as the one below, I've opted to make this post all stacks as each one went together exceptionally well. Per the time allotment for each sequence it's obvious how intense the flash rate was. The stills were only 15 seconds each and due to buffer lag between shots, I still managed to miss quite a few!

28 stills, 8 minutes

32 stills, 10 minutes

17 stills, 4 minutes

33 stills, 10 minutes

29 stills, 9 minutes

23 stills, 6 minutes - The line started to back build so I pointed south.

This was yet another event a better wide angle lens would have come in handy so to not have had to switch back and forth between areas of interest but no complaints as it was a fitting end to a surprisingly productive month despite a few setbacks.