4 ms·

The only way I've ever found to make this make sense is to make a profession, or at least a hobby, of photography. For me that's wasps, most recently this Euro

The only way I've ever found to make this make sense is to make a profession, or at least a hobby, of photography. For me that's wasps, most recently this European hornet [1] who graciously tolerated my close proximity and macro flashes for long enough to get almost a dozen keepers, while a lot of half-drunk baldfaced yellowjackets [2] buzzed unsteadily around occasionally landing on my head. It helps that you can't just rip off a burst in continuous mode and expect to get anything. Your flashes have to recharge after every shot, and it's tough to nail macro focus when handholding. Too, wasps startle easily, and if suddenly shadowed will assume a predator is approaching. So you make every shot with care and deliberation, the way film buffs like to talk about, but there's still space for serendipity nonetheless. Sometimes you catch a perfect four-millisecond slice [3] out of the 100ms or so that a ringed paper wasp spends taking off upside-down from the underside of a rose leaf. There's no way to get shots like this with a phone camera; a wasp will let you get closer than you might imagine, but she won't let you get that close unless she knows you pretty well. Alas, I just bought a house and so a Z9 is thus not in the cards for some while at least, but if we're honest it'd be as much for the sake of it; I suspect I could happily spend the balance of my life working with the same D850 I use now. [1] https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/img_0826.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/img_0826.jpg [2] https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/img_0821.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/img_0821.jpg [3] https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/img_9967-2.jpg https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/img_9967-2.jp...

nop_slide 4y ago
Those shots are amazing! Very cool. Have you gotten stung yet? :) > The only way I've ever found to make this make sense is to make a profession, or at least a hobby, of photography. I recently got my first "real" camera to take better pictures of my family inspired by this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33104618#33123207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33104618#33123207 I definitely wouldn't have gotten one if weren't for the inspiration of my kid, however I've grown quite fond of using it and learning more about taking good photos. It's been a nice creative outlet outside of coding.
- throwanem 4y ago
  > Have you gotten stung yet? Nope! The last time I got stung was more than a decade ago now, long before I ever even got interested in photography as an adult, much less found in it an accidental avenue to almost entirely getting over what fear of wasps I had. (And in entire fairness, I should note that the yellowjacket who stung me that time had been blown into my lap through an open car window, and I dropped my hand on her before I knew she was there. Even then I considered her to have acted entirely within her rights - I was just glad she'd happened to fall on her back!) Wasps have a reputation for being needlessly and boundlessly belligerent, but all I can say is that, over the course of several years now spending as much time in their close company as I'm able, I've found that reputation to be totally unjustified, and wasps themselves to be just trying to get through the day, same as anyone. It might help that I'm not afraid of them, and thus don't reek of anger and fear hormones in their presence. It's unclear how extensive a theory of mind they have for mammals, but much of their communication and sensory experience is known to revolve around olfaction; given that many mammals will happily if hazardously raid wasp nests in search of nutritious brood, it would be no surprise to learn that wasps recognize the stink of human flop sweat as indicative of a kind of danger they will fight, heedless of risk, to deter. That hornet was in many ways a special case, though - the first I've ever seen close enough to, and who spent long enough in one place, to even try for a shot. Paper wasps rarely seem to notice my presence, yellowjackets often do but rarely much care, but I could see that hornet was watching me and didn't entirely appreciate my attention. When she decided she'd had enough, she left the tree on a heading that led to a very close pass alongside my head, enough so that I could all but feel the breeze off her wings, and certainly enough to hear quite loudly the markedly deep hum of her flight. Wasps butt and ram as part of both defense and communication, and I took being buzzed as the latter - specifically, as a clear statement that, upon her return, she'd quite rather I be elsewhere. To be clear, I don't think she would have attacked me if I hadn't made myself scarce, but she probably wouldn't have come back to the fig tree with its bounty of both nutrition and ethanol, and it would've been rude of me to make her feel she had to skip it. I've had many similar experiences - ask me some time how I first learned that fig tree was a highly popular spot with late-season foragers! So I think the problem most people have with wasps has really nothing at all to do with wasps themselves, who don't like to fight any more than anyone else does. But it takes more than one person to not have a fight, and I think humans mostly just can't be bothered to learn not to start one.
dekhn 4y ago
Looking at those photos, they're not terrible but it's clear you're using a flash. Here's what I would do (have done) instead: build a small box with bait, light the entire area using multiple diffuse lights, and point the camera (mounted on a sturdy tripod) at the bait, put a green wall right beehind the far depth of field. Disable autofocus, focus on bait, and set the ISO to the highest level you can tolerate. Sitting nearby, watch the camera's LCD or use USB cable to do live view on a computer. Wait for the subject to come into view, then do bursts. This approach frees you from focus, you're not close to the photo volume, and gives you far more options with ISO and DOF because you're lighting the whole volume. I haven't upgraded from my T4i since it does pretty much everything I need here. Of course it's still fun to get into a the flow state while doing photography, controlling everything by hand in real time, but the above technique makes it much easier to produce large numbers of good images. I have used a similar technique to photograph hummingbirds in their first flights.
- throwanem 4y ago
  This is macro, working with a Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR II from at most a couple feet away and usually half that or less, and I need all the shutter speed I can get to even come anywhere close to freezing motion. Even at f/11, of course I'm using flash! You'd be seeing solid black frames if I didn't, or else so much noise that a solid black frame might be preferable. And to your point about depth of field, again, this is macro - at any aperture wide enough to avoid noticeable diffraction, I have at best a few millimeters of DoF to work with. That's why professionals who shoot insects usually kill their subjects so they'll hold still long enough for focus stacking, and that's why I'm glad this is a hobby for me. That frees me to pursue it in whatever manner I see fit, and because of that I'm under no constraint to do other than take the shots they'll let me have, which is in any case what I'm really after. I also don't think a setup like the one you describe would be very effective for the kind of shooting I do. For one thing, there'd be no way to control how a given wasp would choose to approach the bait. That might not be insurmountable if autofocus worked well in macro, or at least in macro for me, which it never has with any camera I've tried; it hunts a lot and usually fails to find focus. This seems reasonable enough given what such a use case demands of the AF system, but also means there's no such thing as being "free of focus". Too, as I mentioned in a sibling comment, neither wasps nor I generally find anything to be dismayed about in being close to one another, so there's no real benefit I can see in physical separation. (The hornet's attention seemed drawn by my flashes much more than by me; it took a while for her and me both to find spots to work, and she only seemed to notice me once I started shooting.) And if I can already get good exposure levels at f/11 and the sensor's native ISO 64, where's the appeal in being able to add noise or diffraction? If anything I'd want to open the aperture further to take advantage of no longer being limited by sync speed, but even that would come at the cost of precious DoF. In theory an approach like the one you describe might yield better illumination of (relatively) distant background, and there may be some appeal in that. Fermenting figs are unusually attractive, and in their absence I tend to spend at least as much time following wasps around as I do shooting, so fixed lighting isn't a very feasible option. But with three flash heads I have light to spare, and pivoting one of them to throw light behind the subject instead of on her might work well enough; I just haven't really bothered, because the background being as dim as it is defocused seems to me to help keep the viewer's eye where I want it. But it's at least worth a try to see how a brighter background works out. I have also thought on occasion about going out with the diffusers that mount to my flash heads, but I never seem to remember to actually put them on when I have time, and I'm never inclined to take the time when I think waiting around might cost me a shot. I do actually like the effect produced by the reflections off wasps' compound eyes from bare flash heads, but again I think it's worth finding out if I like something else better. Fortunately, I've got all winter to experiment with both techniques, so as to have some idea of what I'm doing by the time next year's foundresses emerge from hibernation and start building.

nop_slide 4y ago

Those shots are amazing! Very cool. Have you gotten stung yet? :) > The only way I've ever found to make this make sense is to make a profession, or at least a hobby, of photography. I recently got my first "real" camera to take better pictures of my family inspired by this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33104618#33123207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33104618#33123207 I definitely wouldn't have gotten one if weren't for the inspiration of my kid, however I've grown quite fond of using it and learning more about taking good photos. It's been a nice creative outlet outside of coding.

throwanem 4y ago
> Have you gotten stung yet? Nope! The last time I got stung was more than a decade ago now, long before I ever even got interested in photography as an adult, much less found in it an accidental avenue to almost entirely getting over what fear of wasps I had. (And in entire fairness, I should note that the yellowjacket who stung me that time had been blown into my lap through an open car window, and I dropped my hand on her before I knew she was there. Even then I considered her to have acted entirely within her rights - I was just glad she'd happened to fall on her back!) Wasps have a reputation for being needlessly and boundlessly belligerent, but all I can say is that, over the course of several years now spending as much time in their close company as I'm able, I've found that reputation to be totally unjustified, and wasps themselves to be just trying to get through the day, same as anyone. It might help that I'm not afraid of them, and thus don't reek of anger and fear hormones in their presence. It's unclear how extensive a theory of mind they have for mammals, but much of their communication and sensory experience is known to revolve around olfaction; given that many mammals will happily if hazardously raid wasp nests in search of nutritious brood, it would be no surprise to learn that wasps recognize the stink of human flop sweat as indicative of a kind of danger they will fight, heedless of risk, to deter. That hornet was in many ways a special case, though - the first I've ever seen close enough to, and who spent long enough in one place, to even try for a shot. Paper wasps rarely seem to notice my presence, yellowjackets often do but rarely much care, but I could see that hornet was watching me and didn't entirely appreciate my attention. When she decided she'd had enough, she left the tree on a heading that led to a very close pass alongside my head, enough so that I could all but feel the breeze off her wings, and certainly enough to hear quite loudly the markedly deep hum of her flight. Wasps butt and ram as part of both defense and communication, and I took being buzzed as the latter - specifically, as a clear statement that, upon her return, she'd quite rather I be elsewhere. To be clear, I don't think she would have attacked me if I hadn't made myself scarce, but she probably wouldn't have come back to the fig tree with its bounty of both nutrition and ethanol, and it would've been rude of me to make her feel she had to skip it. I've had many similar experiences - ask me some time how I first learned that fig tree was a highly popular spot with late-season foragers! So I think the problem most people have with wasps has really nothing at all to do with wasps themselves, who don't like to fight any more than anyone else does. But it takes more than one person to not have a fight, and I think humans mostly just can't be bothered to learn not to start one.

dekhn 4y ago

Looking at those photos, they're not terrible but it's clear you're using a flash. Here's what I would do (have done) instead: build a small box with bait, light the entire area using multiple diffuse lights, and point the camera (mounted on a sturdy tripod) at the bait, put a green wall right beehind the far depth of field. Disable autofocus, focus on bait, and set the ISO to the highest level you can tolerate. Sitting nearby, watch the camera's LCD or use USB cable to do live view on a computer. Wait for the subject to come into view, then do bursts. This approach frees you from focus, you're not close to the photo volume, and gives you far more options with ISO and DOF because you're lighting the whole volume. I haven't upgraded from my T4i since it does pretty much everything I need here. Of course it's still fun to get into a the flow state while doing photography, controlling everything by hand in real time, but the above technique makes it much easier to produce large numbers of good images. I have used a similar technique to photograph hummingbirds in their first flights.

throwanem 4y ago
This is macro, working with a Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR II from at most a couple feet away and usually half that or less, and I need all the shutter speed I can get to even come anywhere close to freezing motion. Even at f/11, of course I'm using flash! You'd be seeing solid black frames if I didn't, or else so much noise that a solid black frame might be preferable. And to your point about depth of field, again, this is macro - at any aperture wide enough to avoid noticeable diffraction, I have at best a few millimeters of DoF to work with. That's why professionals who shoot insects usually kill their subjects so they'll hold still long enough for focus stacking, and that's why I'm glad this is a hobby for me. That frees me to pursue it in whatever manner I see fit, and because of that I'm under no constraint to do other than take the shots they'll let me have, which is in any case what I'm really after. I also don't think a setup like the one you describe would be very effective for the kind of shooting I do. For one thing, there'd be no way to control how a given wasp would choose to approach the bait. That might not be insurmountable if autofocus worked well in macro, or at least in macro for me, which it never has with any camera I've tried; it hunts a lot and usually fails to find focus. This seems reasonable enough given what such a use case demands of the AF system, but also means there's no such thing as being "free of focus". Too, as I mentioned in a sibling comment, neither wasps nor I generally find anything to be dismayed about in being close to one another, so there's no real benefit I can see in physical separation. (The hornet's attention seemed drawn by my flashes much more than by me; it took a while for her and me both to find spots to work, and she only seemed to notice me once I started shooting.) And if I can already get good exposure levels at f/11 and the sensor's native ISO 64, where's the appeal in being able to add noise or diffraction? If anything I'd want to open the aperture further to take advantage of no longer being limited by sync speed, but even that would come at the cost of precious DoF. In theory an approach like the one you describe might yield better illumination of (relatively) distant background, and there may be some appeal in that. Fermenting figs are unusually attractive, and in their absence I tend to spend at least as much time following wasps around as I do shooting, so fixed lighting isn't a very feasible option. But with three flash heads I have light to spare, and pivoting one of them to throw light behind the subject instead of on her might work well enough; I just haven't really bothered, because the background being as dim as it is defocused seems to me to help keep the viewer's eye where I want it. But it's at least worth a try to see how a brighter background works out. I have also thought on occasion about going out with the diffusers that mount to my flash heads, but I never seem to remember to actually put them on when I have time, and I'm never inclined to take the time when I think waiting around might cost me a shot. I do actually like the effect produced by the reflections off wasps' compound eyes from bare flash heads, but again I think it's worth finding out if I like something else better. Fortunately, I've got all winter to experiment with both techniques, so as to have some idea of what I'm doing by the time next year's foundresses emerge from hibernation and start building.