Flutterby

Flutterby, originally uploaded by Bearded Jon.

If you take a week, maybe two, off from shooting regularly you forget everything you ever learned about your camera. I discovered this tonight.

I was out a bit late at Barnes & Noble on business and ran into too many friends, which I didn't mind at all, but it put me far behind the chore 8-ball when I finally got home at 10:45. In my own defense I did knock out a couple chores between when I got home at 6:30 and when I left at 7:10 so I'm no slouch (not a great big one anyway) but I have been out of the house most of the last couple weeks with Queerspace rehearsals and the run of the show this past weekend.

So I get home and Jamie is just itching for me to put the new basket on the handlebars of her beach cruiser bike. She bought a basket a couple weeks ago but it was the "mount on a rack on the back" kind and what she wanted was the "wicked witch of the West", er, a handlebar mounted basket. So today she finally made it to The Bicycle Shop and got the new basket and we passed in the driveway as I was off to my meeting (there are singe marks in the back of my helmet from her glare).

So I'm diligently mounting up the basket and she takes the dogs around the block. By the time the pack returns I'm nearly finished with the basket. Jamie says "there's a dead butterfly in Denise's driveway. You should go take some TtV shots of it." This is where the "I've forgotten everything I ever knew about my camera in the last couple weeks" part comes in.

I go inside, mount up the kit lens, grab my CF card out of the computer, pick up my contraption and I'm off down the street two houses over in search of a dead butterfly. I find it and it is beautiful. A muted yellow with a brilliant blue and orange and red tail. I snap a few pics in P with just the kit lens set to the lowest aperature. Then I lay down in the street and line up the contraption and snap some shakey TtV shots. This is no good. The kit lens is too slow. Its 11-ish and while there is still good light it is fading. I walk back to the house, having decided to give up on the TtV shot and grab my macro lens filter. It will still be on the kit lens but I won't be losing the light that looking through the viewfinder lens robs the camera of. I again lay down in the street and get real close. The macro filter doesn't work so well with the autofocus so I switch the lens to MF and wiggle around until I think I'm in focus. I snap a few shots and then decided that I really do need more light so I trudge back to the house in search of the f1.8 50mm Canon lens and decide to take the 125mm Minolta along too. Then I change my mind on the Minolta and grab the 50mm f1.4 Minolta lens. I hike back over and realize that I was shooting at ISO 100. I could have bumped it up to 200 or 400 and the TtV probably would have worked. I get close to the butterfly but the 50mm is too far away. Nowhere as near as I want to be. What was I thinking. I could have put the macro filter on this lens. So I go to switch to the Minolta 50mm and realize that the 125mm still has the lens adapter on it. No shots for me.

So this is the only shot I like out of the two dozen I actually did take. It is with the Opteka 0.42x macro lens filter on the kit lens 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Cannon kit lens.