Point and Shoot or...

[Ken Ramos]

a shot in the dark


EOS 20D w/430EX Speedlite ETTL
EF 28-135mm IS Wide Angle Zoom @ 135mm

[rjlittlefield]

Wow! But give us the backstory -- how the heck did you ever get this thing focused?!

--Rik

[Ken Ramos]

Rik asked:

Wow! But give us the backstory -- how the heck did you ever get this thing focused?!

There were two of them, green bottle flies from the looks of it, hovering in mid air, moving only slightly from time to time. I was down in the woods below the house when I came across them. I simply pointed the camera at one of them, focused only by what I could actually tell or see, not by conformation, and took the shot, hoping for the best. Not exactly the sharpest image but it turned out a lot better than I though it would. Never know unless you try I guess.

Thanks Rik

[rovebeetle]

I had to chuckle when I saw this . That's too cool.

BTW - if you want to see the master of insects in flight, look at this

He also has images of his (sophisticated) equipment which enables him to do this kind of stuff.

Cheers

[Aynia]

Great shot Ken. Looks like he's walking on air.

[augusthouse]

I agree with Aynia,

The song "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves immediately comes to mind.

Classic Ken!

Harry, interesting link. I found some images just the other day of the setup Frans has made - it's rather intriguing, eh? Dalantech, from http://nocroppingzone.blogspot.com and some others (LordV among them) were discussing flash diffusers and setups.

Craig

[Planapo]

Now, that has worked out nicely, Ken. And the fly is just on the right spot where the background is black and calm.

Harry, Thanks for the link. Fotoopa is cool, I wish I had an opa (= grandad) like him to teach me how to build such nifty gadgets.

--Betty

edit: Craig, Thanks for the additional link too!

[salden]

Excellent image Ken. It takes more than luck, so give yourself a bit of credit here . It is difficult, if not next to impossible, to get these guys in flight with the focus you have here.

[Ken Ramos]

Lasers are pretty neat triggering devices, though I have never fooled with them except in conventional weaponry. Awesome Pretty interesting link there Harry and yours too there Craig, thanks.

Sue wrote:

Excellent image Ken. It takes more than luck, so give yourself a bit of credit here

Okay, a slight bit of a pat on the back here I suppose. It was a spur of the moment thing though.

Betty wrote:

And the fly is just on the right spot where the background is black and calm.

Another bit of luck I suppose.


Thanks everyone!

[Jbailey]

That's a good catch!

Photo electric and sound triggers help a lot but you can still get a lot of rejects. Thak goodness for digital storage. I did my first photoelectric trigger photos while reviewing the "Dale Beam" trigger for an industrial photo magazine in the 1980's. It worked well and made "impossible" photos possible.

For milk splash photos I use a trigger I designed and built. The timing works very well but I still don't get a lot of keepers.

Jim

[rjlittlefield]

BTW - if you want to see the master of insects in flight, look at this

He also has images of his (sophisticated) equipment which enables him to do this kind of stuff.

Yes, this fellow has been doing awesome work for years. There used to be a fairly comprehensive description of his system starting at http://users.skynet.be/fotoopa/laser_module1_E.htm . It seems that he has ported much of the material into pbase (click on the :: laser_system :: link), but I can't tell quickly whether it's all there. Copies of the older pages can still be found in the Internet Archive WayBack Machine, for example at http://web.archive.org/web/200612272155 ... ule1_E.htm . Just personally, I find the older material to be far more readable than the stuff that has been shoehorned into pbase format.

rovebeetle, thanks for reminding me about fotoopa -- somehow I had managed to miss including his pages in my list of accumulated links to interesting stuff!

--Rik