David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Big Spider. I saw this “what I consider a giant” spider above my front door. I went in the back door and got a Nikon D3 camera with a 200 mm lens (I didn’t want to get too close) and a SB-900 flash. It was not as big as a tarantula, but pretty close. I’ve never seen a spider this big in New Jersey before. I don’t know what type of spider it is, but I have not seen one like it since then.
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Five years ago I took the Lady of the Lake ferry from Chelan to Stehekin and back. It was about two weeks since I purchased a Nikon D200 camera. This was my first DSLR, and I barely knew how to use it. I took this image of a female mallard with a 80-400 mm VR lens. I really liked the look, and it became one of the reasons that I have been spending much of my time learning how to be a better photographer. There are three images, the original and two crops. My sister also made a print of this image that I have in my dining room.
Some images of a white moth feeding on wildflowers and a young catbird checking out the wild grapes.
Life and Death in Nature. It was a great day to photograph nature at the Sourland Mountain Preserve. Many Butterflies, Clearwing Hummingbird Moths, Dragonflies,Summertime Nature in New Jersey: Sourland Mountain Preserve. Robberflies, and a few Praying Mantis carnivores. I went in with two cameras, a D3s camera with a 300 mm f/2.8 VR with an TC-E III 20 teleconverter and a D3x camera with a 105 mm f/2.8 VR macro. Humidity was high, and I had to spend the first 15 minutes equilibrating the lenses so they were not fogged. The first place I went to was the location I observed a Praying Mantis eating a Clearwing Hummingbird Moth yesterday. The first image is a Black Swollowtail Butterfly on a Thistle bloom. Soon thereafter a Clearwing Hummingbird Moth started checking out the Thistle blooms. DANGER! DANGER! It didn’t see the Praying Mantis. Minutes later the moth was breakfast for the Praying Mantis. Later, another Black Swollowtail Butterfly was breakfast to a brown Praying Mantis.
Bats in Flight at Dusk. This evening as it was getting dark I noticed there were several bats flying around in my backyard. I knew that it would be a challenge to capture an image of the bats as they darted around chasing insects. The following images were taken with a Nikon D3s camera at 12800 or 102400 ISO using a 400 mm f/2.8 D II lens. The bats were moving too fast to follow using a tripod or monopod, so I was doing this hand-held. This is not a combination that you can hand-hold for long periods. I also wish that I had the VR version of this lens. There was no way that autofocus would work, so I manually set the focus distance to 25 feet and shot in high-speed burst mode anytime the bats flew by at about that distance. Of about 600 images, the following 6 were the best. I am open to suggestions how to do a better job capturing images of bats in flight.
