close up | The Prairie Ecologist

Monday morning was cold here. If I remember correctly, it was about 4 degrees below zero when I decided to go for a walk with my camera. (Because, hey, what else would you do on a morning like that?)

There wasn’t much wind, so it honestly didn’t feel all that bad, especially since I was dressed for it. However, my camera was sure cold. It worked fine, but I had to keep an extra battery in my pocket (so it would stay warm) because batteries don’t last long at very low temperatures. The biggest issue, though, was that the viewfinder on the camera kept frosting over from my breath. Those of you who think photography is easy haven’t tried holding your breath every time you put the camera up close to your face…

As the sun came up, the prairie was populated with seedheads wearing little snow caps. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to find a single one that photographed well. So, I ended up with this photo of milkweed seeds, in which you can’t even really tell it was snowy.

But trust me, it was cold.

Common milkweed seeds on a frigid, snowy day. The Leadership Center Prairie, Aurora, Nebraska.

Oh, and by the way – I took several versions of this photo and struggled to decide which I liked best. You might ask, “Chris, why don’t you just put a couple versions up and ask us which we like better?” Sure, that’d work great. I tried that yesterday with the bison photos. Twenty four hours later, well over 100 people voted, some contacting me outside of the blog, and the vote was almost exactly evenly split. A number of you tried to have it both ways, so your “vote” didn’t really help. The remainder of you did, at least, express an opinion, but in the end, there was no consensus.

I suppose I could take my cue from the United States government, and decide that since the readership is polarized I should just shut down the blog for a while. However, as an example to my country, I’ll take the high road and compromise. Both photos will be included in next week’s “best photos of 2013” feature. You have only yourselves to blame, though, when you look at through that photo montage and think to yourself, “Gee, this is nice, but it seems like there’s one too many images in it…”

(Seriously, though, thanks for voting. Both images were obviously popular. Some people felt very strongly one way or the other. Others liked them about equally. It was fun to read the reasons people chose one over the other. While there were some very thoughtful responses, my favorite was definitely the one from Mary, who chose photo B because the bison reminded her of her old uncle! As of the time I’m writing this, the vote count is 53 votes for A and 50 for B…)

I found this robber fly perched in the prairie early Monday morning. Although it was fairly breezy, the light was good enough to attempt a photo. I’m glad I decided to give it a try.

Robber fly. The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Prairies, Nebraska. You can always click photos to see a sharper version.

Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have even considered attempting this photo. When I was shooting with slow speed slide film, I loved the saturated color of Fuji Velvia, but every time I clicked the shutter it cost me about 34 cents in film/processing. That kind of cost made me pretty leery of trying to photograph something like a flower that was blowing around in the wind. A shot that came back blurry because the subject was moving too fast cost me just as much as a nice sharp image, so I couldn’t afford to “miss” very many times. I would often take 3-4 versions of the same shot to make sure I got the exposure and focus correct, but even that was costing me about a dollar per good image.

This week, I photographed the above robber fly for about 5 minutes. Within that time, I took 162 images. The vast majority of those were blurry because the wind was swinging the fly and its perch so much I couldn’t focus and shoot fast enough to keep up. I ended up with only a few sharp images in three different compositions. Ten years ago, taking 162 photos would have meant about four and a half rolls of slide film and would have cost me about $44. This week, it just meant I had to sort through 162 images to find the good ones – something that took just a few minutes.

Digital photography can sometimes make me a little lazy because it’s tempting to let some of the fundamentals of exposure and composition slide and try to fix things later with digital processing and cropping (though I usually don’t do much of that, and there’s still no substitute for getting it right in the field). On the other hand, digital photography allows me to take risks that would have been unthinkable (or at least really expensive) in the old days. Blurry photos don’t cost a thing now, and can often be deleted in the field. Just as important, I can make sure I’ve got the shot I want before I leave, instead of discovering it days later when my slides come back from being processed. Overall, it’s a pretty good time to be a photographer.

Just for fun, here are some of the other images from the brief photo session with the robber fly.

This one ended up relatively sharp…

…but I had 30 more that looked like this.

This one (like many others) was pretty fuzzy…

…but this one isn’t too bad.

The Prairie Ecologist

Essays, photos, and discussion about prairie ecology, restoration, and management

Tag Archives: close up

Photo of the Week – December 13, 2013

Photo of the Week – October 3, 2013