u/hairy_quadruped

Last night was beautifully clear, and photographing a crescent moon is far more interesting than a full moon, imo. I planned this alignment using an app called Photopills which tells me where and when to shoot from to get the moon aligned with any foreground object. In this case I used a 600mm zoom lens from the shore of the Lake near the Carillon. I'm 4.8km away from the tower. I took a photo every 12 seconds, but only used every 2 minute shot for this. The entire sequence lasted about 30 minutes. Lest anyone accuse me of AI, I have all the original RAW files to show this was done the good old-fashioned way by standing in the cold for an hour with a tripod, big lens and a beanie.

You see more when you commute by bike.

We have extensive pig damage on our farm in south east NSW. I’m building a pig trap using about 200kg of gate panels, sheep mesh, pavers, tools, and extra hardware. It’s been raining so the ground is a bit wet and muddy. The Model Y clearance isn’t great, I definitely wouldn’t use this on very rough ground. But several hundred meters of steep tussock grass is no problems. Not a single slip of the wheels.

I do macro photography. Whenever I find a bug, fly, spider or beetle, it becomes a photography subject. This is a March fly that I found deceased (it's May). These fockers have a very painful sting when they are their best. This one was not at its best, and to get my money's worth, it became my next subject.

Tech details for those interested:

This sort of photography is rather specialised, requiring not just a good camera but special lenses, lighting and technique. A single photo at this magnification has a very shallow depth of field, the bit in focus. In this case, only a 10 micron sliver is in focus. That's 10 thousandths of a millimetre. For our US friends, that's 0.000393701 inches. (Does the US have a unit of measure smaller than an inch?).

To get the entire head in focus I take a bunch of photos, each at a different focal point. I do this by mounting my camera on an automated rail that moves a tiny bit forward between each photo. In this case, I took 76 photos. I then use software to "stack" the photos. The software picks the best-focussed bit of each photo and assembles that bit into a master picture that has the best-focussed parts.

Sony A7RV camera

10X Plan microscope objective

WeMacro focus rail

Custom LED lighting and diffuser

Stacked in Zerene Stacker, edited in Affinity Photo

We have spent the last 13 years regenerating an over-grazed cattle property into a wildlife refuge. Our reward has been to see an influx of native animals and birds over the years.

These thornbills hang around in groups of 15 to 20 at a time, grazing on grass seeds. I would much rather have these wild, than cattle penned up on my place.

We have a regenerating bush block in NSW. It was an old over-grazed cattle property when we bought it 13 years ago. We have spent that time reforesting the land, ridding the land of weeds and feral animals. Our reward has been to see a huge amount of wildlife return to the land.

This is a gigantic wombat hole built under a fallen tree. I set up a wildlife camera to see how big the resident was. I got some good shots of the wombat, but also a huge number of other visitors. Kangaroos would poke their heads is and wallabies would go right inside to check it out. A few possums too.

Here is daytime footage of a lyre bird scratching around while a black snake slides right along. The bird is clearly aware of the snake, but doesn't seem too perturbed.

This praying mantis was on my windowsill, looking in. With the sun directly behind it, the backlighting made its body translucent and made the colours glow. I have cropped and denoiused and adjusted levels, but I have not altered the colours - this is how he/she appeared with the backlighting.

Tech details for those that are interested:

Sony A7RV body + Sony DG 100mm macro lens

Handheld focus stack of 8 images, stacked in Zerene

f/6, 1/100s, ISO 800

Denoised in ON1, cropped and minor edits in Affinity Photo

I do extreme macro photography. I took a new 25G medical needle, the type that is used to for vaccines, insulin or to inject local anaesthetic into the skin. It is a very fine needle, the opening is less than 1mm long.

I dipped it into the centre of a daisy to pick up some pollen.

This sort of picture is done with a microscope lens attached to a standard camera. Taking a single photo has an extremely shallow depth of field, meaning that only a tiny sliver is in focus. To get the entire needle in focus, we take a series of photos, moving the camera on a rail by a few microns each time. We then assemble all the pictures using stacking software that pics the best-focussed bits of each photo and makes a single well-focussed picture.

Feel free to ask more about the technique.

We see snakes most days on our bush block in summer, mainly red-belly blacks, sometimes eastern browns, occasionally copperheads. But this late in the year, they have usually hunkered down to hibernate for winter. Its been unseasonably warm, and I wasn't surprised to see this juvenile red-belly black sunning itself.

This is our bush block in NSW that we have been regenerating as a wildlife refuge for 13 years. It started as an overgrazed cattle property, but a bit of TLC, weed control, feral animal eradication, and erosion management has meant the return of native trees, and a huge diversity of animals and birds. For me, snakes are a sign of a healthy ecosystem, as they must have a variety of frogs, lizards and other animals to eat.

Before anyone gets in with the "shovel to the head" comment, snakes are a natural part of the land. They are shy, and try their best to avoid humans. They are dangerous only if you are stupid.