Hoverfly

Identification - Episyrphus balteatus, marmalade hoverfly.

I decided to do an early safari today. On the bike ride, it was very cold and when I started the walk, it felt quite chilly, cool enough, I wished I had a cardigan. It is a long time since I felt that cool. This of course meant that there would be very few bugs around.

Sure enough, no butterflies or dragons or for that matter, anything in sight. I resigned myself to coming back in a couple of hours, but as the sun peered over the valley wall, the bugs started to warm up and I managed a few shots of this hoverfly.

There were a lot of martins around, zipping passed me within a few feet. They were flying up and down the valley, skimming over the tops of the paddy crops. I tried shooting them last year, panning as they skimmed the water, but no success, I did capture a nice shadow on one image.

Today I decided to have a practice shoot for a head-on martin in flight. Technically a much more difficult option, but the opportunity was there. I set shutter priority, under exposed by 3 clicks as the camera woefully over exposes everything in daylight. With the ISO set to 1000, this allowed me 1600th shutter speed.

I set up with the monopod and pre-focused on the water bamboo growing in the paddy. With the camera under my chin, I watched the birds fly up the valley towards me and single shot fired. It was going to be a numbers game. I figured at 25 feet, this would give me plenty of latitude and still enough for a crop.

The results were appalling, but it was a test shoot and plenty was learned. The idea was solid, but I was going to need a faster shutter speed and perhaps a bit closer. Because there is going to be a lot of cropping, I don't want to raise the ISO any more, but I may be able to steal more speed by under exposing. The images were plenty bright, so I think I have some room to play with.

Hoping for clear skies tomorrow for another run. A stool and a flask of coffee could be in order too.

Dave