» Breezy Botetourt Gardens keeganm.com

Breezy Botetourt Gardens

Mating hoverflies at 2x

Norfolk has been pretty windy lately. I’ve only been able to take a few shots the past few weeks. Even a slight breeze makes shooting bugs a real challenge. A great day of shooting requires almost perfect stillness, which is rare. I was able to snap a few fun photos in between gusts tho.

Also for the first time I’ve got a good quality photo taken at 5x! This is the max the canon mp-e 65 can do without additional gear. Shooting at 5x in the field is challenging even without a breeze. The image is very dark through the eyepiece, so what I end up doing is starting around 2.5x, then zooming in while moving my camera back. This lets me keep the subject int he viewfinder, but it takes a considerable amount of time. Couple that with skittish critters and a 5x shot is rare. But with practice more will come.

As with my previous posts, each of these photographs was taken with a Canon 5d Mark II, mp-e 65 macro lens, and the mt-24 ex twin flashes mounted on the lens, with diffusers attached. I highly recommend you click the photos (once one is open you can click the right side of each to scroll through them) to see the detail, especially in this first one.