From your yard, garden, or property.

[Adrienne Siebert]

Anything taken on or from your property goes. 😀

Little Leaf Notcher (Artipus floridanus)

[David Chesterfield]

Taken just yesterday:

[Adrienne Siebert]

@dchester1001:

Nice! Thank you for participating! 😀

Love the comp on the first.
That cat in the second photo looks like a spiny bird/lizard turd. No creature in their right mind will want to eat that. Haha!

Can you include ID on creatures if possible? I will make a point to do that to my IDable creatures as well. 😀

[Adrienne Siebert]

Anadenobolus_monilicornis

Argiope trifasciata

Selenopid female

[David Chesterfield]

Good point @bugadrienne. I will do my best, but don’t always know. The caterpillar is commonly known as a ‘bird Poo Caterpillar’. common name: giant swallowtail
scientific name: Papilio cresphontes Cramer (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Papilionidae)

[Tobie]

This pic is not one of my greatest but it’s one of my proudest. I knew that this owl sat on my roof almost every evening at dusk but at the nights I was waiting for it, it did not come and vice versa. Then one late afternoon I decided to go for a walk and take my camera with (for no particular reason at all). We returned after sundown and as we neared the house, saw the owl on the roof! I asked my wife to get my camera from my ruck sack as I was scared it was going to fly away if we moved too much. As she was removing the camera, I could hear my extra lenses hitting the tar road and rolling down the street! I was really perspiring like mad (and shaking!) by the time I was taking the pic. Not bad for 1/8s handheld, hey?

f/5.6
1/8s
ISO 800
260mm
Manual mode
Manual focus
Lens: Tamron 70-300mm

Spotter Ear Owl by Tobie on Light Stalking

[Adrienne Siebert]

@dchester1001: Thank you for the ID. It is fun for me. 😀 BTW If I were an animal that didn’t know better, I would feel sorry for the bird that pooed that one. O_o

@tobiepsg: Congratulations! Definitely not bad considering it is 260mm on a telephoto. :-O I hope no lenses were injured during the shoot. 😉 I have been waiting for this vulture to come close enough so I can catch it in flight. So far, a bunch of cr@p files which have been deleted. One day I will nail it…

[Tobie]

Thanks @bugadrienne! Fortunately I pack all my lenses with hood attached the wrong way round (no better protection for a lens!) and thankfully it payed off – no damage at all. I’ve seen this owl afterwards as it introduced its chick to the real world, together with its partner. But it was too dark to get non-blurred photo’s.

I hope you get your vulture – patience is the name of the game – and always be ready !

[Adrienne Siebert]

@tobiepsg: I also store the lenses that way for space reasons, but never thought about the protection added. Too bad it is such a pain to fiddle with the wrong way hoods when one needs manual focusing after quickly mounting a lens. I wish all were the kind with the snap on hoods with the buttons like for my Canon 100mm F/2, but those turning ones like on my Canon 70-300 (the one that I will need to use for that vulture) drive me insane when I try to change them around. It feels like I am damaging something when the front of the lens turns with it, then I just toss the hood in the bag rather than deal with the frustration of trying to put it on right (if I am shooting away from the strong light). lol
Now, if only all of my lens caps had the center buttons as well as the side ones. That makes it easier to deal with a properly hooded lens that is mounted. I usually just put the cap in my pocket and hope the hood and filter are good enough protection when carring the camera on me.

Thanks for the wish. I have the bag next to the front door and keep the 70-300 in my pocket when shooting around the yard. 😉 Sorry for the vent, I lose my patience with a couple of my hoods. :-/

[Tobie]

Ha ha! I know exactly what you’re talking about @bugadrienne! I mostly leave the hood off my mounted lens (while bagged), until I’m ready to shoot. But I’ve felt the frustrations when quickly swopping lenses for a particular situation. That’s just part of the package, I guess!

I also store the cap in my pocket for the mounted lens. You don’t need more protection than the hood & filter, for sure! 🙂

[Karen]

It’s been quite cold and snowy here lately in New England, and it seems like I have been housebound for weeks. I did get out into my yard to take a few photographs, though.

[Adrienne Siebert]

@karamen: Thank you for sharing!
Lovely compositions. I especially like the last photo. I envy your view, but maybe not the temperatures. lol

[Michael Lloyd]

Paper Wasp at around 4x

Barn

[Tobie]

Love it, @michael-lloyd! I’ve got a macro kit on my wishlist for the medium term, so could you provide us with the EXIF data for the insect at least?

Was the farmhouse done with HDR?

[Michael Lloyd]

Thank you Tobie,

No problem on the Exif.

Barn-
The barn is not an HDR image. It was taken toward the evening, setting sun to camera right, facing a little southeast so the face is lit and the roof and north side are in shadow. Also, sometimes when I apply Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4′ filter I forget to back the saturation down. Sometimes I don’t want to back it down. Usually Tonal Contrast is fine like it is. Anyway- The grass is about that green today. It’s actually winter oats that I planted for my daughters horses to eat through the winter. I didn’t plan this image. I was coming home after shooting a basketball game for a friend of mine and when I saw may barn I felt like photographing it :o) My house is to the left of the barn, out of frame.

Paper Wasp-
The wasp was on a nest that was about 4″ in diameter. Maybe a little bigger. They usually build high and I don’t care to be on a ladder near a bunch of wasps. This nest was low enough that I could use a tripod and macro rail. I normally don’t use a rail for macro but considering the subject and the setup time I needed for this shot the rail was pretty handy. It took about 45 minutes to get close enough to make the image. The first 35 or 40 minutes were spent moving the tripod in, running away :o), and waiting for the wasps to settle down so I could move in a little more. It was a hot summer day and they were pretty active.

EXIF- Barn

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV manual
70-200 f2.8L IS II @110 mm (the best all around lens Canon has ever made)
1/20 at f/8 This was hand held but I was resting the lens on a fence post
ISO 200
Spot metering mode

EXIF- Paper Wasp (the nest was in under the barn canopy by the way)

Canon EOS-1D Mark III manual
MP-E 65 mm with a ring light. Manual. I don’t recall flash power but I’ll guess at around 1/4 power
1/250 at f/8
ISO 400
Spot metering

[Tobie]

Thanks Michael! You’re right, I’ve seen some good stuff from the 70-200mm f2.8 recently! Thanks for sharing in such detail!

[Michael Lloyd]

Anytime… Just let me know and I’ll over explain anything you ask about lol

[Karen]

Thanks, @bugadrienne! Yeah, we are a bit tired of the cold about now, another storm coming in tomorrow. @michael-lloyd, that’s a great barn shot. So well lit. I have heard a lot about that lens. Might look for a used one.

[Rachon]

Pine Warbler (Male) (500×375).jpg by Rachon on Light Stalking

[Tersha]

some really good shots, here…
this is one of my favourites from last year in my garden……

[Adrienne Siebert]

@wardsway

@tersha
Thank you for sharing!

I don’t think I have one good birdie shot. I don’t have a good excuse as there are birds that come around. I wish there were yellow ones. lol I used to see some yellow and black kind occasionally, but now all I see are doves, bluejays and some kind of hawks that hunt them. An occasional woodpecker comes around too. I have been waiting for a vulture to come close enough. I have failed to get even a halfway decent image of one of those in flight.

[Adrienne Siebert]

One of the weevils that have eaten my rose leaves.

Anolis sagrei ready to fight.

Anolis sagrei’s look after he realized he is busted by a human. lol

[Rachon]

Your welcome. I’m looking forward to Spring. It seems to offer more photo opportunities. I’ve been wanting to photograph a bat or an owl, I would settle for a buzzard 🙂

[Adrienne Siebert]

[Ian Kahler]

lilies in my garden

Floral R0018.jpg by Ian Kahler on Light Stalking

[Shane]

wow..

[Adrienne Siebert]

@justian: Beautiful!
Did you spot meter them in the shade or light them at night? Or was the darkness from post process?

[David Chesterfield]

Same giant swallow-tail caterpillar a week later…

[Adrienne Siebert]

@dchester1001: It is looking much better now, Before it looked like cr@p. 😉

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

lol @bugadrienne telling it how it is!

[Ian Kahler]

bugadrianne, the lilies were shot mid morning, using an off camera flash. I use all manual settings on the camera and flash.
I set my aperture to f22 and the shutter speed varies from 1/80s to 1/200s. The shutter speed varies in accordance with the color and/or brightness of my subjects. I always shoot in open shade so that I can greater control over the light from the flash. The flash is mounted on a tripod and I hand hold the camera for more control over composition. My WB is usually set to open shade, and the ISO is at 100.
That being said , the process is SOOC. The black background of course, is produced by the combination of very small aperture and fast shutter speed… which of course, totally underexposes the background. Obviously I have to be careful of what is IN my background, aka no bright objects to close behond my subject. Hope this helps

[Ian Kahler]

ermmm sorry Adrienne, I mispelled your name… DOH.
here is a link to additional photographs using the same process. Only two of there were shot using spot metering with direct sunlight. You should be able to see which photos which are the exception.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.206602242833088.1073741828.206601266166519&type=3

[Dawn]

Bird in the rain by Dawn on Light Stalking

[Mathilde]

IMG_7415.jpg by Mathilde on Light Stalking

[Adrienne Siebert]

@justian: I am not sensitive about my name, Ian. Many people don’t even pronounce it properly, but the point still gets across. 😉

Funny how I didn’t even think of the flash causing the black BG. Being such a well known effect. I usually try to avoid that effect and haven’t used it on purpuse in a while. Lol!

[Michael Lloyd]

Here’s an old image from my back yard (2008 according to the watermark). Black-chinned Hummingbird. I can’t remember if this was a two flash or one flash setup. Probably one.

Every now and then I get on a bird kick. Thanks to drought and odd weather conditions lately the Hummingbirds haven’t been around as much. Or maybe I’m working more than back then

[Michael Lloyd]

Another old image from 2008

Black-capped Chickadee

[Michael Lloyd]

Truth be known, some of my favorite back yard images are from storms. Lightning is easy to shoot and it’s fun.

[Michael Lloyd]

And every so often, albeit rarely, a comet is visible. This is Pannstars setting with the crescent moon

[Michael Lloyd]

Speaking of moon 🙂 I’ve got a bunch of full moon images from the back yard but this is more along the lines of what I like…

But here’s a full moon just for grins

And a highly cropped and processed attempt at Jupiter and some of it’s moons.

Don’t forget to look up.

[Michael Lloyd]

And last but not least… some more macro stuff. Sorry about the flurry… I was just trying to show the diversity that we all have in our yard if we look for it.

Praying Mantis. The background is real. It’s the sky. I was shooting straight up with an MP-E 65mm lens, handheld. Right after I made this image it “reached” for my lens and about scared the poo out of me. We both flew off…

Dragonfly with the Canon 180mm macro.

Not macro but taken from my fence line. The wind blows a lot up here on the hill. This was made with a 5 stop ND filter and some fast moving clouds cooperation.

[Karen]

Thank you for your images @michael-lloyd…They inspire me to keep going!

[David Chesterfield]

The caterpillar I presume…

[Adrienne Siebert]

@dchester1001:

Of course!!! Lol! I love your photos. Please keep them coming. <3

[Adrienne Siebert]

@michael-lloyd:

Thank you for sharing! Very nice. 😀

[josie]

IMG_899407244619453.jpeg by josie on Light Stalking

[Adrienne Siebert]

@figure4photography: Nice!

Here is a minor male Umbonia crassicornis appearing to wait for a chance to mate an already mounted female.

[Michael Lloyd]

The rose image is nice but I think it would be better with all snow and no fence.

On another note- @bugadrienne have you ever been to the website- http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

I have yet to post an image of a “bug” there that wasn’t id’d in less than an hour. I have another reference for birds if anyone is interested.

[Adrienne Siebert]

@michael-lloyd:

I have registered with bugguide but never ended up submitting a photo there. However, it is the first site I visit for species ID or references to North American arthropoda. Love that site! I have uploaded to Project Noah before: http://www.projectnoah.org/organisms. I probably did more ID suggestions than submissions though. I tend to get carried away about the bugs…

I am either bugadrienne or likebugs on forums that I have accounts for. Probably likebugs on bugguide. It has been a while since I even signed in.

[Susanne Ball]

Misty Woods w border.jpg by Susanne Ball on Light Stalking

[Susan]

A couple from my ‘backyard’ I have probably posted these before ( really must get busy and get more photos onto flickr) they were a while back, having been a very hot summer this year there is not much grass left.

This also keeps popping up in my yard……..not sure if it falls in the ‘bug’ category, maybe under ‘pest’ ! lol

[David Chesterfield]

Lady Beetle Larvae

And adult:

Cicada (double drummer):

Long tongue Blue-banded Bee – Amegilla cingulata

Clanger – Psaltoda claripennis (cicada)

[Adrienne Siebert]

@dchester1001: lovely! I would like to have bees like that around. I only get honeybees and the occasional tiny metallic green bee that i don’t know the names of.

[Adrienne Siebert]

Some other things that can be found in the yard

[Cheryll Ann Kammerer]

Took this photo of a flowering bush in my yard on a very foggy morning last week.

Foggy Morning Flowers by Cheryll Ann Kammerer on Light Stalking

Nikon 5100 maual mode with a 35mm 1:18

[Cheryll Ann Kammerer]

Here is another one taken that foggy morning of the flower blooms on the bush. Don’t know the name of the bush but they are so pretty an seem to be everywhere right now. Comments and suggestions welcomed.

Tiny Flowers by Cheryll Ann Kammerer on Light Stalking

Nikon 5100 manual mode with 35mm 1:1.8

[David Chesterfield]

A yellow faced whip snake that my daughters cat brought inside.
“https://www.flickr.com/photos/david-chesterfield/10755222293/player/3e70b3a869&#8243; height=”333″ width=”500”

[David Chesterfield]

[David Chesterfield]

From the park opposite where I work. Golden Orb-weaver.

[Adrienne Siebert]

I love it! The snake and the spider. @dchester1001

[Adrienne Siebert]

[Tom Bogey]

The road in front of my property after recent snowfall.

rotamer-rd_b&w.jpg by Tom Bogey on Light Stalking

This is a composite of three photos, stacked vertically, shot with Canon 28-135mm zoom at 35 mm, @f/4, 30 sec, ISO100.
Shot just after midnight on a recent cold moonlit night. We haven’t had anything else here is WI lately.

Moonlit-night.jpg by Tom Bogey on Light Stalking

This is the B&W version.
Moonlit-night_b&w.jpg by Tom Bogey on Light Stalking

[Adrienne Siebert]

@tbogey:

Thank you for sharing. I like the B+W the best, but I am a B+W addict.

[Susan]

Seen in my ‘back yard’ after a recent storm, the boys desperately wanted to dig up the paddock looking for the pot at the end!

[Tersha]

spring crocus in some rare sunshine…….

[Tom Bogey]

@tersha If this is a recent photo, I envy you. Nothing but cold, snowy weather here in WI.

[Tersha]

@tbogey, I took it a couple of days ago……mostly it’s just rain, rain, sleet and more rain, but we had one cold, but sunny day!

[Adrienne Siebert]

@tbogey, @tersha:
Here in S. FL, I envy anyone who got a different season. Winter passed us by this time. Crocus look so beautiful, but would probably not survive a few days down here.
I was sweating over here as my air conditioner broke recently. 🙁

[Author]

Posts