Weeds can be great

All of these were from one large weed in my garden
Episyrphus balteatus (f)

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmJ​D6K

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmM​yfz

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmD​crn

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmh​QEN

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmC​4pX

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jmC​4c7

No surprise here. Weeds is just a bad name for native plants. Almost all the insects evolved alongside the indigenous plants which play host to their young, so without them many of the insects just can't make it.

If you haven't read "Bringing Nature Home" by Doug Tallamy, and care about the environment, you should give it a read. It is right up there in importance as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was for saving The American Bald Eagle, Peregrin Falcon and others when DDT was used everywhere.

Keith Newton wrote in post #19094148
No surprise here. Weeds is just a bad name for native plants. Almost all the insects evolved alongside the indigenous plants which play host to their young, so without them many of the insects just can't make it.

If you haven't read "Bringing Nature Home" by Doug Tallamy, and care about the environment, you should give it a read. It is right up there in importance as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was for saving The American Bald Eagle, Peregrin Falcon and others when DDT was used everywhere.

I agree with you 100%. Sadly so many people want their lawn to look like a snooker table.

I like the spider shots, the flash in the hover shots is too harsh.

racketman wrote in post #19094255
I like the spider shots, the flash in the hover shots is too harsh.

Someone else said that but I like really bright photos - I wonder if this is because I am colour blind.

I will do slightly darker ones in future.

Great series.
Love them all. And everything's only a weed when misplaced and out of control.
No idea how you decipher the colours. Had a brother who was colourblind, but never understood it.
Take my hat off to you who are.

It's not so much how bright the total images are but that the highlights are washed out so lack detail I think its more the case that you need to adjust the flash diffusion.

ISO 1600 with flash?

racketman wrote in post #19094540
It's not so much how bright the total images are but that the highlights are washed out so lack detail I think its more the case that you need to adjust the flash diffusion.

ISO 1600 with flash?

I am using a flash diffuser I bought. I think I might try something else. Sadly the flash has a problem at the moment - sometimes the camera does not know that it is there so puts it too very high ISO with flash.
I don't know quite how to solve this. It has only just started.

Well if you shoot in manual mode at 1/200 f11 and set ISO between 200-400 with TTL flash then you wont get random ISO speeds. If under or over exposed just adjust the flash's exposure compensation.
I presume you have auto ISO set at the moment, I would change that to 200 or 400 ISO.

Auto iso automatically reverts to 400 with flash so if iso fluctuates either the camera does not recognise the flash or the flash is still charging(with small aperture/high Av number flash can take long to get ready again).

I’ve never used auto ISO but just trying it out with my 90D, 100L and 580EXII it will go to ISO 1600 if subject is dark. In fact at f11 it has to be pretty bright not to set itself to 1600.

That's strange, as far as I know Canon has fixed the auto iso at 400 but maybe only with the newest camera's. Mine(5DIV) only changes between flashes(flash not ready to go off) but as soon as the flash is charged it revertes to 400. The only way to use a consistent higher iso is not to use auto.

see also this thread:
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1373277

racketman wrote in post #19095236
I’ve never used auto ISO but just trying it out with my 90D, 100L and 580EXII it will go to ISO 1600 if subject is dark. In fact at f11 it has to be pretty bright not to set itself to 1600.

Sadly for some of mine it went to a very high levels - not sure why - very annoying. IIRC about 12000 - complete mess.

davholla wrote in post #19095719
Sadly for some of mine it went to a very high levels - not sure why - very annoying. IIRC about 12000 - complete mess.

Were those single shots when your flash was fully charged or in a row with multiple exposures?
Are you sure the flash fired for the high iso shots?