2018-45
It’s week 45, but I just took this “summer-looking” image! This picture was taken using a Helios-44 lens. Helios is probably the most famous vintage lens there is; it was produced in the old Soviet Union in 1958-1992 (my copy is from 1982) and is one of most mass produced lenses in the world. It comes in several variants. The version I have (“M”) is supposedly the worst one, but I’m very pleased with it. It’s built in solid metal, focuses down to 0.5 m, and has a mag ratio of 1:6:5 at the closest focus point. I bought it cheap (FYI – the average price in October 2018 was only $32) including an M42 adapter to fit in on my Fuji.
In case you’re interested, there’s a weekly podcast called “The Classic Lenses Podcast” and there’s an entire episode dedicated to the Helios-44 here
2018-43
It’s been a sunny but very cold weekend here in Amsterdam! Autumn is really here now; it was above 25° Celcius and since yesterday it’s only 7° (and 3° at night).
2018-42
All the leaves are brown… ♬♪♫ …Not! Because we have a sunny October that still feels a bit like summer!
On the other hand: Week 42 now = Only 10 weeks left this year!
Pictures taken with Fuji X-T2 camera and Pentax-A 50 mm lens.
2018-41
The maximum soap bubble bokeh I could get with the little Pentax-a lens 😉 Have a nice sunny Sunday everyone!
2018-40
This changing season ~ Photos made with my Fuji X-T2 and a Pentax-a 50mm lens I found in my parent’s storage, it’s from the late 80’s I think. It’s a very nice and compact little lens; it’s built in metal but only weights 145 grams. I love the bubbly bokeh when shot wide at f2 🙂
2018-39
Mushroom season is here! Here are some pictures taken with my Fuji X-T2 camera and vintage lens Pentacon 50 mm 🙂
This swirley bokeh is one of the reasons why I love this little lens
2018-38
Summer’s coming to an end… But there are still some brave flowers shining bright
Please follow me on Instagram, where I’m posting one picture every day — Fuji camera & various vintage lenses 🙂
2018-37
Three pictures from Sweden 🙂 Taken last weekend with my Fuji X-T2 camera and vintage lens Pentacon 50 mm.
I’ve also opened an Instagram account: @caleeamsterdam ❤
2018-36
Week 36 – One more from the rose garden 🙂
(Posting a bit earlier than usual because I’m off to Sweden for the weekend!)
SOOC, no edit, no filter
2018-35
Playing with my Pentacon 50 mm lens in the Rosarium in Vondelpark.. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but I personally love bubbly bokeh 🙂
Besides adding a small signature, these images are SOOC without any editing/post processing. I appreciate CC, so if you have any ideas/suggestions please write something in the comment section below!
2018-34
New gear! 🙂 Test shots!
I got another vintage lens: Pentacon 135 2.8. It’s a telephoto lens made in GDR (East Germany), I found one in mint condition and got it super cheap.
There are two versions of this lens, and I got the second version which is inferior to the first as it only has 6 blades and the diaphragm can close to f/22 (the first version has 15 blades and can close to f/32), but still a very nice and sharp lens which is fun to use. The minimum focusing distance is 170 cm, something that will take a bit getting used to for me, especially since I’ve mainly shot with a 60 mm macro lens the past year. Anyway, today I went for a little walk and took some first test shots with my new (although it’s older than me) lens. It can of course only be used in full manual mode, but the focus ring is smooth and easy to use so it’s not really a problem I think.
Fast manual focus! 😉
Never seen so many wasps as I’ve done this summer! 😮
2018-32
Week 32! No exotic or unusual butterflies today, but happy to see them just the same 🙂 Have a nice week!
Update 8/13: According to WordPress, this blog post from yesterday doesn’t exist and this site was last updated 8 days ago. Therefore, this post doesn’t show up in the WordPress Reader either 😦 …. If you read this, thank you for visiting my blog.
2018-29
Hello 🙂
Here’s a picture of a Map (Araschnia levana), the butterfly best known for having two forms: levana (spring brood) and prorsa (summer brood). levana individuals are primarily orange in colour, and prorsa individuals are mainly black with some white markings. This here is a summer brood showing off its beautiful underside (a map like pattern which look the same in both broods)-
Here’s a picture I took during my vacation in Sicily, a beautiful Violet carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea)! This bee is huge, about 3 times the size of the biggest bumble bee we have here in Holland. Unfortunately I only had an old iPhone at hand, in real life its dark blue-purple colour was much nicer.
I like big bugs and I cannot lie
2018-26
Week 26 = we’re half way through 2018 already!
Today I want to share some pictures of a Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album), I’m not entirely sure but I think it’s a summer generation of sub-species (f.hutchinsoni).
In most languages this butterfly is called something with a reference to the white mark it has on its side, e.g. in English it’s Comma, in Spanish it’s C. Although in French it’s called Robert-le-Diable (“Robert the Devil”) because of its jagged wings. The scientific name also refers to the mark: “c” + “album” (which means white).
This butterfly has very good camouflage, both as a larva (mimicking bird droppings) and as an adult (mimicking a dead leaf).
PS. I’m off to Sicily so there won’t be any updates the next coming weeks!
2018-23
Some random pictures I’ve taken with the Pentacon 50 mm lens… Have a nice week everyone!
Helophilus pendulus literally means “dangling march-lover”
The Donacia clavipes has amazing colors!
HUGE eyes…. and a goatee!
2018-21
The cardinal beetle is actually three different species of beetles. The most common one is the Red-headed cardinal (Pyrochroa serraticornis), which is an orange-red beetle with a – duh – read head. It’s about 2 cm long and easy to spot as it kind of glows (in the closeup shot below you can see the color is kind of red metallic). The Black-headed cardinal (Pyrochroa coccinea) has a – uhm – black head and is rarer, slightly larger and its body has a deeper blood-red color. The third kind is the Scarce cardinal (Schizotus pectinicornis), it also has a black head but is less than 1 cm long.
Cardinal beetles prey on other insects, while their bright red color prevents them from being targeted by other predators because red usually means toxic in the bug world.
If you see a beetle with red wings and black underside and wonder if it’s a cardinal beetle or not, the easiest tell is to look at the antennae: Cardinals have toothed antennae. It’s often confused with the Scarlet lily beetle, which is smaller and usually found eating lily leaves.
Black-headed cardinal (Pyrochroa coccinea)
Red-headed cardinal (Pyrochroa serraticornis)
Orange-red metallic
Those toothed antennae
A failed attempt of photographing a flying cardinal beetle, but ended up with an interesting bokeh shot instead
2018-20
Two different takes on two different kinds of butterflies-
(1) Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria), photographed today with Fuji 18-135 mm + Raynox 150. Goal was to get close to the butterfly and capture as much detail as possible. Picture not edited except it’s been slightly cropped.
(2) Green-veined white (Pieris napi), photographed with Pentacon 50 mm. Goal was to capture the moody light in the forest, not so much details in the butterfly (although enough to determine that it’s a female spring brood). Picture not edited or cropped.
Would you do me a favor and let me know which one you prefer? Not saying one is “better” than the other, but just curious to know your preference. You can use the voting buttons below! Thanks 🙂
2018-19
A little Jet ant (Lasius fuliginosus) enjoying a beautiful day in the forest… Photos taken with Pentacon, this lens is about 45 years old (made in East Germany), and really nice to use. It’s not super sharp when shot open wide at f1.8, but that wasn’t the purpose of these shots anyway. 😉
“Sharpness really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in my book. I’d rather look at an image with soft gloomy highlights with aberrations all over the place, than a clinically perfect super shot. It’s the same with human beings. It’s our flaws that make us unique. It’s these flaws that enhance beauty by giving us an immediate reference through presence of the less-than-perfect.”
Jonas Rask – official Fujifilm X-Photographer
The plant is known as cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), it’s a herbaceous biennial or short-lived perennial plant in the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae).
2018-18
Week 18! I’m very excited to share these images with you, they’re taken with a very old lens: Pentacon 50 mm f1.8. It’s got an M-42 mount so with an adapter I can use it on my Fuji camera. And I *love* this lens! Really, it has everything I’d ever wanted in a lens: It’s sharp where it’s supposed to be and soft where it’s supposed to be (with very nice, kind of dreamy bokeh).
Modern lenses are usually big and heavy because of their autofocus functions. Old lenses don’t have autofocus, thus a fraction of the size and weight even though they’re made of metal and not plastic. You can find this fantastic little lens at flea markets or charity shops for 20-25 Euro. I kid you not! If you see one, please do yourself a favor and buy it because that’s a purchase you’ll never regret.
If you’re worried about shooting in full manual mode, please don’t be. See it as an opportunity to become a better photographer! Nowadays, everyone’s snapping away with cameras that have several automatic settings and autofocus. Shooting in manual mode means you have to take the time to really think about what you want to photograph and how to do it; You have to set the focus, aperture, etc. manually and soon you’ll have a much better understanding of light and composition as well.
Pictures taken in Amsterdamse Bos today. I don’t want to post too many pictures at once, so I’ve selected only 3 examples of what this lens can do. No filters or photoshopping has been done, besides adding a small signature, these pictures are straight out of camera.
Red forest ant
Bubble bokeh
The Map (Araschnia levana) is a beautiful but skittish little butterfly. The most unusual fact about this butterfly is that its two annual broods look very different. The summer brood are black with white markings, looking like a miniature version of the White admiral and lacking most of the orange of the pictured spring brood.
2018-17
Week 17! Two green pictures: one bug and one flower.
First, a picture of a Green dock beetle (Gastrophysa viridula). They have a shiny, metallic sheen that’s primarily green but also gold, bronze and brass colors depending on their age and which light you see them in. If you see a metallic green little beetle and wonder how to identify which one it is, you can look at the legs – Green dock beetles have metallic green legs while most others have all black legs. This one was only 4 mm long so I think it’s a male (females are bigger).
(More info and pictures of a female dock beetle here)
Garlic mustard flower (Alliara petiolata) is a biennial plant, i.e. it’s a flowering plant that takes two years to complete its biological lifecycle. In its first year it forms clumps of round shaped, slightly wrinkled leaves, that when crushed smell like garlic. In the next year it produces these beautiful cross shaped white flowers in the spring.
2018-16
Today I saw several Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) butterflies! They usually fly from the beginning of April until the end of October – in three overlapping generations! Because they are able to overwinter in two totally separated development stages (Note 1), they have a complicated pattern of several adult flights per year.
Note 1: They enter the caterpillar stage between half May and half September. The growth speed differs significantly between them and some caterpillars grow as much as 3 times faster than others! Those will overwinter as pupae. The ones that emerge from the egg stage and become caterpillars in mid-August will spend the winter as half-grown larvae.
These butterflies are very territorial, and most of those I saw today were males engaged in battles (Note 2). This happens when one male has claimed a nice spot of sunlight that pierces through the trees and another male flies through his sunspot. Note that this only happens if the other male is of the same species, if a male of another kind of butterfly enters the spot he’s totally ignored. If a female flies through the sunspot, the male flies after and tries to mate with her. But otherwise he’ll remain in the same sunspot until the evening (he’ll follow the sunspot as it moves across the forest floor) and then spend the night high up in the trees.
Note 2: If you’ve never seen one of these battles and are now trying to picture what it looks like: to be honest, it looks kind of lame. The “resident” male flies towards the intruder, and then the pair flies upwards in a spiral pattern (no body contact). The one that keeps at it the longest wins. It’s usually over in a few seconds, but the longest documented battle between two male Speckled Wood butterflies went on for 94 minutes.
PS. One of my photos has been published on Natuurfotografie, the #1 platform for nature photography in The Netherlands and Belgium. If you can read Dutch, please take a look here.
2018-10
One of the roses in Vondelpark’s Rosarium has survived the winter and is still looking quite nice 🙂
2018-9
It’s cold here in Amsterdam! People (and some birds, see below) are ice skating on the canals (link) 🙂
Ice skating for the first time
2018-8
Week 8 in 2018-
More snowdrops… Next week I’ll definitely try to find something else to photograph! 😉
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