‘All in the Detail’ Series Part 2

I am now back from my winter guiding in Abisko. The season obviously came to an end a little earlier than usual due to the rapid advancement of the Coronavirus. A bit of weird transition going from skiing every other day, working with people, living in a shared house and exploring arctic wilderness to being sat on my own in lockdown in my semi-detached house in Yorkshire! 

I had a week under self-quarantine after being on flights then I spent a week feeling very tired, a bit paranoid re catching the virus on the flight and yesterday decided to get going again.

I do have a huge backlog and back catalog of images that I have taken over the years so I thought I would pull together the 2nd set of images for my 'All in the Detail' series.

If you haven't seen series one you can find that here.

Just for those of you haven't seen the 1st series the premiss of the series is to show that there is more detail to these images than what you see on the web. Nearly all my images are taken on Canon full-frame cameras and therefore what you see on the web is a shrunk version of the image. Some of the final version images are shrunk by a factor of sixteen so much of the detail is lost. The only way to see the full detail is to either seem them as a big print or on an 8k tv.

There are 6 images in this series and then at the end there is a gallery showing the highest resolution images that I will put on the internet. 

1. Portrait of a marbled white butterfly (Melanargia galathea)

This was taken in the field on a perfectly still day so I could get away with very slow shutter speeds. Was approximately 40 images that went into the stack. Taken at five times magnification

Canon 5DS camera, Canon MP-E 65mm lens

Settings; ISO 800 Aperture f/5 shutter speed 1/4 sec 

2. Female wolf spider (Pardosa amentata) with spiderlings on her back

Quite a tricky subject to photography as these spiders are very shy. I found I had to find them (in a good friend's garden) them move into position laid on the floor. The spider would have vanished by now. But get the camera ready into position and slowly wait for the spider to come back. They nearly always do. Then slowly move toward the subject to get the shot(s).

A handheld stacked image in natural light at around 2 times magnification

Canon 5DS camera, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro IS L lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/4.5 shutter speed 1/160 sec 

3. Thick-headed fly (maybe Physocephala rufipes)

A stacked image in natural light at around 2 times magnification

Canon 5DS camera, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro IS L lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/6.3 shutter speed 1/80 sec 

1. Zebra jumping spider (Salticus scenicus)

The reflections you can see in the spider's eyes are my lens, my hand, and the clouds. Most jumping spider shots you see all you can see is the flash reflected.

A handheld stacked image in natural light at around 4.5 times magnification

Canon 5Div camera, Canon MP-E 65mm lens

Settings; ISO 3200 Aperture f/5 shutter speed 1/125 sec 

1. Robber fly

A handheld stacked image in natural light at around 4 times magnification

Canon 5Div camera, Canon MP-E 65mm lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/5.6 shutter speed 1/80 sec 

1. Minning bee on a flower

A handheld stacked image in natural light at around 3 times magnification

Canon 5Div camera, Canon MP-E 65mm lens

Settings; ISO 1600 Aperture f/7.1 shutter speed 1/160 sec 

Well I hope those images had the desired impact and give you an insight as to how much detail is actually there. 

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer plenty of time to do that at the moment whilst under lockdown.

If you wanted to see large versions of the images without the crop I have included those below for you to have a look through.

If you had a favourite I would be intrigued to know...

All the best and please stay safe out there,

Oliver