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Guest
Guest
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In case anyone's been wondering where I've been, the answer is simple: on vacation. This time, I've brought something wholly untypical for me. Long story short, I was visiting my home city, Vladivostok, to hang out with my parents and friends, as well as to help the former with certain problems in the household. By and large, the trip was a resounding success, and I managed to shoot in excess of 1600 pictures (which I'm now culling). Around 300 of those were spent within the space of 20 minutes on the subject seen below...
https://sun9-13.userapi.com/c639626/v639626170/4b501/_3-N2xbPVDE.jpg
Let me present you the Macroglossum Stellatarum moth, of the Sphingidae family. Its taxonomy was given away at once by the method it was feeding, very similar to a hummingbird. But since it's a daytime insect in a predominantly nocturnal family, precise identification was easy for a change. It's a widely spread species, occurring from Portugal to Japan.
http://pp.userapi.com/c840427/v840427170/efc4/VNTgmwZkhc4.jpg
Due to its fast and erratic flight pattern, shooting was very complicated for a relative newcomer like myself. I was using the 1D Mark 4 camera (what else) with the Tamron 70-300/4-5.6 VC lens throughout, the vast majority of the shots were done at f/5.6 and 300mm. Most are crops of varying severity from the lightly processed 16MP OOC JPEG files.
http://pp.userapi.com/c837137/v837137170/4e992/WT5-B8WKjYk.jpg
I'm not convinced of the results myself, to be honest. I felt like I was way out of my league on this one, but afterwards, when I started massacring shots by the dozen and my mother voiced her objections, I explained that I had to try my best if pushed into such a situation.
http://pp.userapi.com/c841531/v841531170/223a1/pXGSNVAc6GI.jpg
The lens was not at all cooperative (well... it's an $200 unit after all), especially with regard to focus speed. While I'm not willing to put it on the chopping block for this - it had performed admirably in most other duties I put it to - I have to concede that it's not yet ready for prime time (pardon the pun) by itself. However, I left the 70-200/2.8 L IS at home for a variety of reasons (one is weight, another is that it requires maintenance and I could not let it fail on me while I was in the middle of the journey).
http://pp.userapi.com/c840620/v840620621/e1dc/HjNnxpipCGA.jpg
The shots were made on Sep. 25th. The day, despite being so late in the year, was lovely. As have been (mostly) the other days of my journey. However, on the day of my departure, Oct. 1st, the weather was already so-so. When I arrived in St. Pete's, it was autumn in full stride. That blows...
https://sun9-13.userapi.com/c639626/v639626170/4b50b/21ouliUmzDU.jpg
https://sun9-13.userapi.com/c639625/v639625170/44694/JhVhTW6FtAk.jpg
https://sun9-13.userapi.com/c840028/v840028170/34b83/9UKUFGR0Ijo.jpg
P.S. A few images just refused to be hotlinked to unless I kept the https protocol. Go figure. I apologize for the confusion.
Edited by Guest on Oct 03, 2017 at 10:04 AM · View previous versions
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Oct 03, 2017 at 04:15 AM |
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