Backyard Butterflies

It took long enough for summer to get into full swing here in Germany. And now that it's finally here our backyard has been full of butterflies. Ariana has learned to gently catch them and put them in her bug box to study and observe.

The other afternoon she had up to 5 butterflies in her box that she caught all by herself. 

Of course for me it was the perfect time to break out my macro and take some shots. After a little while we set them free but boy did she have fun catching and watching them!

These were taken with my Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 105mm/f2.8G macro lens.

We discovered that macro shots of a butterfly makes them look kind of alien in the face.

 I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get their eyes more in focus no matter how I angled the camera, what aperture I used or where I focused. 

Fellow photographers, any tips?

The little yellow one was my favorite to photograph.
Ariana had such a good time playing outside. So happy I'm getting this quality summertime fun with my girlie!

Snowflake Macros

These photos were taken with my Nikon D7000 and my Nikkor 105mm/f2.8G Micro Lens.

It's been snowing here in Germany and I'm still working on perfecting the art of snowflake macro photography. They are just so dang hard for me to capture. So beautiful though. You'll always find me outside on a snowy day trying to get that perfect snowflake photo.

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Return of the Macro!

I got my macro back the Monday before I flew to Florida on that Thursday. If you read this post you already know the horrible sad story of my broken marco and how happy I am to get it back in time for my trip. Here are some of my first shots from my newly repaired lens in Florida.

I loved finding these little lizards. I believe they are a brown anole also called the tree anole but I'm not a biologist so I'm not certain. It may take some more research. But they were cute lizards with a white stripe up their back and yellow around their eyes. They were all over the plants outside my mom's porch.

And then I found this white caterpillar with black spikes which I'm pretty certain is a Heliconius charithonia and grows to be a Zebra Longtail butterfly which is the official butterfly of Florida! Awesome!

 This is my photo of the Zebra Longtail from our trip to Flamingo Gardens in Florida last year.

I'm VERY happy to have my macro back on my camera, especially now that we're in Florida and I can capture those little lizards up close! 

Broken Macro Lens = Tears

This is the story of how my lens got broken.

A little while back this happened. It was a sad sad day in my house. This is my 105mm micro lens.

It was a chilly day at the end of January and I decided this was a good day to go outside in the backyard and try to get some macro photography of the little snowflakes falling on the grass. I got my camera ready, checked the battery, changed to my macro lens, and set it up on the tripod so that I could get low in the grass and keep it steady. I have to stop right here and say that usually I just hold it in my hand and try to keep it steady. But, for some reason I was shaky that morning, so I went with the tripod in hopes of getting clearer images. I set it all up by the back door and went around the corner to get my jacket and rain boots on. 

All of a sudden, I heard a huge crash from the kitchen. I freaked out and ran in there. My camera was on the floor. Since I wasn't actually present when it fell, this part of the story is just from my assessment of the situation. The macro lens is pretty heavy and had caused the camera to lean forward a little bit, just enough to cause the tripod to tip over from the adjustment. And my camera went down, lens first.

I was so upset. 

I ran in there mumbling "no, no, no" under my breath and hoping nothing was broken.

But it was broken. 

It had fallen onto our hard tile floor and now was sporting horrid cracks in the front glass.

The good news is that we have insurance on my lens. The problem was, I couldn't send it to a Nikon company in the USA, I had to get it done in Germany. There is no Nikon repair service near me so I had to mail my baby off. Let me say this whole process of fixing it has taken way too long. I'm still waiting on the repairs to be completed and I'm starting to get frustrated with the slow communication with the service center. I can't get the insurance to cover it without some paperwork from them and they haven't gotten it to me yet.

But, hopefully I'll have it back in my hands soon. Preferable before I fly over to the states for a few weeks. I leave in less than 2 weeks.