Praying Mantis

Keep sharp eyes out when sitting on the backyard deck, you never know what you will find.By the way they taste with their feet and don't like to be picked up because they don't like the taste of your hand and will begin to clean their feet when you put them down...

Camera Nikon D-300-Lens Nikon 85mm macro/ISO 250/shutter speed 1/60sec. at F-11

A view to Deep Creek,Maryland

Here are a few shots from my recent visit over to Deep Creek,Md....... All shot on a Gopro camera, no view finder no LCD no problem.

Butterflies at Brookside Gardens

My wife told me to go and take some pictures of butterflies yesterday, she would have gone with me but had something else to do. Brookside Gardens is one of my favorite places to go and pratice the art of photography because I love butterflies. If you are going to take a picture of a butterfly the problems that you have to get around are first you have to find them. They are moving targets so if you use a high shutter speed to try and freeze the wings as they are moving this generally cuts down the depth of field so part of the wing may not be in focus (if you time it right take the shoot as the wing are flat and from a overhead angle all of the wing will be in the same focal plane and in focus). If you try high f-stop to gain dept of field generally this give you a slow shutterspeed and if the wings are moving you get blur. The answer for me has been to raise and lower the ISO to gain an advantage of each shot as needed. I have included the camera settings and hopefully this will help you...Gary

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikon 50 mm 1.18G / ISO 400 / f-5.0 / 1/100sec.
This is a clear wing butterfly indigenous to Costa Rica - the scales on the wings are transparent...very rare

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikon 50 mm 1.18G / ISO 320 / f 5.0 / 1/125sec.

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikon 50 mm 1.18G / ISO 320 / f 5.0 / 1/125sec.

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikon 50 mm 1.18G / ISO 320 / f 5.0 / 1/125sec.

  Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Nikon 50 mm 1.18G / ISO 320 / f 3.5 / 1/125sec.

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Tamron18-270mm / ISO 1250 / f 14 / 1/1250sec.

 Camera Nikon D-300 Lens Tamron18-270mm / ISO200 / f 13 / 1/400 sec.
The last two pictures were taken outside in a garden, all others were inside the butterfly house...Gary