Ditto. A really great time. But don't expect much out of Chuck's 5D.
The ants were too fast and too hard to focus on with my Viv S1 90/2.5
and the Jays were too far away and too fast for me to get much of
anything usable. As Dean says, macro and wildlife is hard stuff. But
the company and conversation was great. I also met Dean's wife Barbara
who is a paleo-something-or-other. She studies soil cores drilled and
drawn from deep under the Florida lakes in the area in order to identify
the flora of the past (up to 40,000 years old). She identifies the
stuff by examining the pollen.
I was fascinated by Dean's macro gear. I saw all sorts of OM gear that
I've never seen other than in the eSIF. He also has some very
interesting homebuilt gear to help out.
But I did learn one of his secrets today. Since I couldn't even follow
the ants around (who were trying to escape from the ant lion) I at first
couldn't imagine how he manages to do those extreme macro shots of even
tinier acquatic insects in a flowing stream. Turns out the flowing
stream is the secret. To keep from being washed away in the stream the
aquatic insects stick themselves to a rock with body secretions that act
as glue. The water is flowing but those little guys are stuck in place
just waiting for Dean to come and take their portraits. :-)
I'll try to post something tomorrow if I find something usable.
It was a bit special getting to meet Amadeus the eastern indigo snake.
They're an endangered species and I don't believe I've ever seen one
even in a zoo. They're gorgeous, very deep, dark purple and very
iridescent with rose colored lower jaw and neck. Gentle as a puppy but
they eat eastern diamondback rattlers by overpowering them and
swallowing them head first. A hard way to get lunch. Our quiche and
salad today was much easier to catch. :-)
Chuck Norcutt
On 2/20/2012 7:44 PM, hanse112@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Hello all,
> My wife and I are spending the month of Florida working/relaxing at a
> biology station in southern Florida (see<www.archbold-station.org>). When
> Chuck Norcutt mentioned on the List some time back that he was spending the
> winter in Florida, I contacted Chuck and invited him to spend part of a day
> here at Archbold. Today was the day.
> Chuck arrived with his Canon 5D, an OM 4, and assorted lenses. I
> showed him my arsenal of OM Zuiko macro lenses (20/2, 38/2.8, 50/3.5, 80/4,
> and 135/4.5 (from well-known List enabler Bill Barber)), bellows, reversed
> 7mm movie camera lens for high magnification, etc. I had my
> cross-polarization equipment set up and demonstrated to Chuck how it
> greatly reduces reflections.
> Chuck wanted to see an Indigo Snake. Luckily, there is a research
> fellow here working on this species, and he brought out a captured example
> for show-and-tell. The snakes (3, IIRC) will be brought up to the U of
> Florida where they will be put under anesthesia and will have a radio
> transmitter installed in their body cavity. Then they are released where
> they were captured, and they will be monitored for roughly a year before
> the transmitter has to be replaced.
> We tried to feed some ants to ant lion larvae, but, well, things
> didn't go quite as well as hoped for. Calling in a family of scrub jays
> went much better, and Chuck was able to put his 80-200mm lens to good
> effect here.
> After a bit of post-processing, I'll try to get a couple shots of our
> day up on PhotoBucket. It was a very enjoyable day together. It was very
> nice to put a face and a person on all those knowledgeable posts Chuck
> contributes to the List.
> Dean
--
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