NO SPACESHIP LOOKING FOR HIM

The weather is now about the same in Stockholm, as when this was shot a year ago. I am greatfull I do not sleep outdoor this time of the year, that a warm bed awaits me at home, food and familly. I was on the streets of Stockholm for a while this past weekend, almost a tourist, and saw quite many beggars, most of them I presume without a real home. Twenty years ago when I first moved to Stockholm and roamed the streets with my cameras, I rarely saw homeless or beggars. They are of course not as common as in truly poor cities, but they are far more common here than in the past. If you ask me, the first large change came in the the mid to late 90's. Now I think it has increased again the last couple of years. Is it an effect of the current policy to let sick and unemployed people fall out of the well fare system? Open begging gets more and more common, but people have alsa learned to ignore them, and walk by. There is no space ship looking for these people if just they can send an S.O.S. to the stars.

HUNTING BUTTERFLIES

What you need to shoot butterflies? A camera, a macro lens, butterflies (obviously) and patience. There are is course rules that apply. Macro work results in thin depth of focus (DOF). Actually so small that you are going to want to close down the lens as much as possible or else you wont be able to fit a whole bug within the DOF. On the other hand, bugs move, so you can't shoot with as long exposure time as you may do with a still object, like a flower. Longer lenses results in thinner DOF, but it also change the distance you can work at. Supposedly, the same framing should result in the same DOF at a given apperture. Longer lenses makes it more difficult to hold the camera steady enough to get a sharp shot. Shake reduction has partly changed this, but the same rule applies, except that you now can shoot sharp at about two steps longer exposure time than before. But there is another rule that over-rules all these optical rules:

The relationship between the lens and the amount of patience you need. Most butterflies are shy and will leave if even your shadow touch it. The relationship is approximately 

Patience = 1 / (f x f)

where f is the focal length. So a 100mm lens requires only 1/4th of the patience you need to shoot butterflies with a 50mm lens. A 200mm lens would make do with 1/16th of the patience.

However, the really long macro lenses are rare and usually more expensive. Pentax made two 200mm macro lenses, the SMC Pentax-A*200 f4 macro 1:1 (manual focus) and the SMC Pentax-FA*200mm f4 macro 1:1 (autofocus). The "*" denotes Pentax highest grade or professional serie. These are both considered among the best long macro lenses ever made, partly because of a high ability to produce a smooth bokeh that helps isolate the subject. Unfortunately both are out of production and a high demand on the second hand market and because these lenses are rare, results in high prices. The FA*200 was supposedly only made in 1100 copies for the whole global market, and some copies are for sure living a useless life among collectors, and others have been converted for use on Canon's EOS bodies. The only current lens in this class made for Pentax are the Sigma 180mm f3.5 macro 1:1 lens, but Sigma has problems producing enough copies, and the queue to get one is long. So what to do? When I sneak around with my 35, 50, 90 and 100mm macro lenses the butterflies and dragonflies escape before I get enough of them in the viewfinder, or I end up cropping too much to maintain quality. Sitting for hours at a popular flower waiting for a butterfly to land there do work, but that is where the "patience-equation" comes in. Sometimes I have patience enough, sometimes not, and to complicate things, even if I do, my wife or kids may not (and I don't blame them).

Until now I've been playing around with converters on my 90 and 100mm macro lenses (resulting in a manual focus 180mm f5 or a 170mm ~f4.8. Optically compromises, as always with converters, even dedicated such as in the case of the Tamron Adaptall 2 SP 90mm f2.5 macro 1:2, and rather slowis/darkish. So what to do? I don't have the budget for an A* or FA* macro.

The two first images are of a small tortoiseshell ("nässelfjäril" in Swedish) feeding on an oregano flower. Like the rest of the photos of this post, they are shot with a 200mm macro of another brand, on an adaptor, a lens corresponding to the manual A*200mm. We are talking about the Canon FD 200mm f4 macro 1:1 lens. As Canon totally abandoned their FD mount when going into autofocus with the EOS mount, the prices are much lower than corresponding Pentax lenses (partly because these are still fully compatible with the Pentax digital SLRs). I'm mounting the Canon lens with help of a SCOPTIC made FD-K mount adapter that can be baught on the web very sheap. To maintain infinity focus it has an optical element that "enlarge" the picture a factor ~1.4. This makes the lens a ~280mm f5.6, and cause some optical degrading (see this thread on the Pentax forum). But the lens element is easy to remove, and while I loose infinity focus, it focus up to severall meter away, which is enough for macro work. I lose inifinty but gain speed and quality, and the lens remain a 200mm f4 lens, though it is now capable of a little bit more than 1:1 macro (the adapter and the difference in registration distance between the K mount and the FD mount act as were they small extension tubes). I've either shot on manual with flash or on Tv and the lens stopped down to f8 or f11 in  natural light.

Below follows a Cabbage butterfly (large white or in Swedish Kålfjäril) and a common brimmstone (citronfjäril in Swedish) feeding on a Silene chalcedonica. I've also got unprocessed with this lens shots of a silver-washed fritillary (silverstreckad pärlemorfjäril) and the European peacock (påfågelöga) that I may add to this post later on. More shots in my flickr and in a Pentax forum thread.

BOH!

PLUNDERING BIRDS

I'm not much of a bird photographer. But when a whole flock of allied Bohemian waxwing and fieldfares ransakes our rowan tree right outside our kitchen window I just had to bring the SMC Pentax-DA 55-300mm and try it out on these brave birds. Some images are not top sharp, which may partly be ibecause I was shooting in the upper end of the 300mm range, but may also be blamed on inpurities in the window glass (if I had tried to open the window they would all have gone in a flash). 

It took them less than an hour to plunder the tree. When they left there were not more than a handfull of rowan berries on this pretty large tree. The winter have been hard and long and 60cm snow depth does not leave much for them to eat besides what are still on the trees. We have put out some old apples for them now when the tree is empty, and some of the field fares have been there, but I haven't seen a single waxwing since they emptied the tree. Hopefully they found some other trees to harvest.

 

THE EARTH AIN'T FLAT AND I HAVE THE EVIDENCE

K20D with the SMC Pentax-DA10-17 fisheye, stitched with PTGui from 7 originals.

This is Stockholm (capital of Sweden) shot from ~115m above sea level (you can hint the baltic sea in the inner archipelageo on the upper right, north-east). I'm standing on a ~12m metal frame tower on top of the elevator machine room (dark grey square) on top of the concrete tower. The elevator goes to the 20th floor, after which we have to climb three steep stairs indoor, a fourth outdoor up in the machine room roof, and then 12 m vertical ladder to reach the platform. The tower is used for radio communication and mobile phone networking.

From the platform my research group at Stockholm University samples the concentration of carbondioxide and aerosol particles and turbulent motions which enables us to derive the emissions of both carbondioxide and aerosol particles from traffic combustion to the north and west of the tower. In the south to south-east we instead see how the forest area takes up carbondioxide through the photosynthesis of the plants and how particles are deposited.

The purpose of this photo is to show the surroundings and the different source or sink regions for carbondioxide and particles around the measurement site. It will probaby be included in some posters on scientific conferences and some publication in scientific journals together with measured data.

I'm not completely happy with the result because after having taken some shot inside the machine room where we have our computer and data logging I forgot to decrease the ISO when I got up onto the platform, so I need to go there again with the camera. Then I will probably also try to use the SMC Pentax-DA15mm ltd. After this shot I changed the settings on my K20D so that the top display show the ISO instead of remaining pictures on the memory card. Hopefully it will help avoiding such misstakes even when I'm in a cold and windy place like this.

Some land marks: to the north to north-west are the central Stockholm including Södermalm and the old town. If you zoom in there are many familiar land marks for those who are familiar with Stockholm. Just north of the tower is what used to be a worn down harbour area, Hammarby-hamn, but is since a few years a fancy living, office and shopping area (large emissions from cars here). Just north-east of the tower surfaces one of the exits from the long traffic tunnel that goes south of Stockholm. The green area to the east and south-east are the northern end of the Tyresö park, a large protected green area, but as you can see, the living areas just south of the tower are also rather green with low emissions. To the south-west you can see the indoor arena "Globen" (the white globe), a well known land mark of modern Stockholm (no it was not where Hamlet put up his original plays).

I must say that I'm really impressed by the PTGui software. Powerfull, easy to learn, inexpensive. The demo version let you try most functions.

HOWER FLOWER

Despite an amazingly long summer, the garden life goes towards autumn, but we still have hower flies and sun flowers. A while ago I played around with the SMC Pentax-DFA 100mm f2.8 macro with converter (for reach), flash with diffuser on the K20D, and I was pleased with the result. Hope you like them too.