I was on a walk around the bay at King George Park the other day and couldn’t believe my eyes when I came across an elephant in a tree.

He didn’t make a noise or move a muscle but, on closer inspection, I can confirm it was an elephant.

I took some photographs this afternoon using the macro setting on my digital camera. The macro still remains one of my favourite camera settings. I used a fairly high resolution so that when I downloaded/uploaded them to my computer, I was able to zoom in further and crop the shots with iPhoto. Can you guess what it is that I photographed?

Could this be a spider’s web, perhaps?

Or an alien from outer-space?

A tribal totem?

By the way, I’ve been experimenting with the new iPhoto on my computer. You can do so much with this version.

Have you guessed what the images are?

It’s a dragonfly! Sadly, the dragonfly was either injured or at the end of its life span. It was beautiful…

A dragonfly in macro

Click the images below to view the larger size.

Similar to a helicopter. I gave this one a colour-boost.

Here you can see the “alien from outer-space” on the shoulders, the upside down “tribal totem” at the base of the tail and the “spider’s web” wings.

It looks like the dragonfly wears a helmet.

My cats were quite enthralled to watch me take photos of this dragonfly.

Adding effects to your photos

Adding effects to photos with the new iPhoto is incredibly easy. I blurred the edges slightly in the photo directly above. To the other photos, I added a vignette (Edit photo -> Effects -> Vignette).

I find the vignette boosts the macro effect, drawing the eye towards the centre of the photo away from the corners.

The colour boost also emphasises the splashes of blue on the dragonfly’s body.

Shooting with a higher resolution

Taking detailed photos using a higher number of pixels gives you more room to play with and manipulate them during post-production.

I don’t know how common it is these days, what with the massive storage space available on memory cards, but it seemed to be common practice, for us amateur photographers, to change the digital camera settings to take lower resolution photos in order to get more onto a memory card. While this approach allows you to take masses of photos, it doesn’t give you a lot to work with at the other end. As I said, this is probably not much of an issue anymore.

If you are still using the lower resolution setting on your digital camera, try a higher setting and see the difference.

Related post:

• Using the zoom function in macro mode

A lunar eclipse happens when the earth is between the sun and a full moon.

Last night, 28th August, was the lunar eclipse and it was a truly amazing sight. My neighbours set up their telescope, and with a set of binoculars, various cameras and a few drinks we were comfortably set up for a couple of hours to view the night-sky. What a great way to experiment with night-time photography!

Through the telescope

The moon looked spectacular through the telescope. It was extremely bright at first as the shadow appeared, and so I used a low exposure -2.0. With the camera lens directly against the telescope eye-glass, I was quite surprised at how well these turned out.

Only the eyes and nose of the Man In The Moon are visible here. I set the exposure quite high.

After this it became difficult to get a photo of the moon through the telescope using the camera. I played around with the light levels in the new iPhoto on this next one to give you an idea of what it was looking like.

Using the tripod

I changed tact and set the camera to the ‘night’ setting, put the exposure up as high as it would go and popped it onto my tripod. The blood red (or rather, orange) moon looked quite surreal – it took on a 3D quality as the colour changed.

I put the large image sizes on Flickr.

How did your photos turn out?

I took this photo recently on my way home from work. It was such a beautiful winter’s day. The afternoon sun was soft and the clouds were so light and fine that it looked as though they had been painted on to the sky. I pulled over for a while just to enjoy the view.

I’ve mentioned before that I love clouds and they do make superb photographic subjects. I’ve just got a copy of The Cloudspotter’s Guide- this book tells me that the wispy clouds right at the very top are called cirrus and are “…delicate streaks of falling ice crystals” which are too high up to actually reach the ground. Delicate as they are, cirrus clouds are usually a sign of worsening weather…and if I recall correctly, there was a heck of a lot of rain soon after this photo was taken.

Well, I hope this high cloud is cirrus – I only just got the book!

I have a small tripod for my digital camera which extends to about 30cm. I use it quite a lot. It comes in especially handy for photographing text-based items. Even the tiniest movement results in a blurred item which is no good for reading print. I occasionally wear the hat of ‘unofficial photographer’ at my workplace, shooting images of archival records that contain very beautiful, albeit occasionally illegible, 18^th Century handwriting. It requires a tripod.

Stop your own shadow creeping in

Using a tripod for photographing items close-up also helps to prevent your own shadow from creeping into the shot. All the lighting in the world won’t help you if you find you are having to hover over a desk (or the floor) to directly line up your camera over the subject for a close-up. My shadow always appears (well, I’m conscious of it) just when I am ready to click. Using the tripod allows me to set up the shot (and set the timer) and then move aside. No more shadow. I can also properly angle the camera at 90 degrees while it sits on the tripod for a direct shot over the subject.

Other tripod uses

Another way in which I use my tripod is simply as an extension of the camera itself. It is a really useful way to hold the camera. Gripping the extended tripod legs together in my hand turns it into a handle of sorts. This holding technique worked well when I was experimenting with my macro setting. It feels as though you are able to move the camera in closer to the subject.

How else do you use your tripod?

Use it across ‘the ages’

Today I discovered the tripod also fits my vintage camera. I love this. I love that modern accessories can be used on older equipment.

It also fits a Pentax ME-F SLR I’ve been experimenting with.

All this for around $25.00 can totally improve your photography.

Related post

• Who else has a Gorillapod tripod?