New lens, some garden critters and an intense sunset in Oudtshoorn

in Photography Lovers3 years ago (edited)

Hello Hiveans

Hoping you are all well. I've been seeing such great posts and interesting info, it seems that there is so much that I want to do that is inspired by people here on Hive.
I originally intended to do weekly updates on our Oudtshoorn adventures, sort of like a visual diary of sorts but this last week slipped by so far with a lovely visit from my mom in law, that I'm a bit late. Oh well, life happens.
We've been learning a lot and expanding on our knowledge base, looking after our daughter and doing our own version of home schooling, planting seeds (that will be a whole separate update), I've been working on our three businesses, watching the markets and occasionally getting outside to take the odd photo when something catches my eye. Our resident mousebirds are very busy at the moment as the palm tree seeds have ripened so they can be seen clambering up and down in family groups to find the yummiest of these berries.

Mousebirds eating palm berries.png

They seem to be getting used to us, but they are still pretty sneaky. I was able to get a few nice photos of them over the last week and a bit.

I also managed to finally get a close up of one of the little day geckos that run around at the speed of a Lamborghini.

Gecko face.png

Some of these photos have been taken with our new 300mm macro lens that was donated by my mom in law as she has never used it. It took me a good while to figure this lens out to be honest as it has a "normal" lens function up to 200mm and then from 200mm to 300mm you have to switch it over to the macro setting and it sometimes just says no, I don't want to (when this happens, generally by the time you've convinced it to switch over the creature that you wanted to photograph is a kilometer away).

So once I had kind of figured out the best setting to get it to work with me, I then left it on that setting and got some nice shots.

DragonFly Hunting.png

This dragonfly was very friendly and accommodating. There have been a number of these dragonflies visiting us, especially when we let any grey water out of the bath onto the back lawn. It even attracted a mating pair which my husband got a few photos of. I feel rather bad about that though because in such a dry place, where are these dragonflies laying their eggs when they require water to deposit them into? I think we may have to build a pond for them (do you see how easily I add projects onto the to-do list?)

Very few of the trees and plants are flowering now due to the heat and aridity, the few that are seem to be holding onto their flowers for dear life.

Purple flowers.png

I went in search of little creatures to test out the lens some more and was quite satisfied with the quality of the lens even though it has a very shallow depth of field which means sometimes you capture a bug bum in focus instead of a head. I have just become resolute that if I want to make sure I get at least one photo that's any good, I have to take at least four or five.
There are plenty of these funky little beetles and Karoo Ball Biter ants to practice on.

Little Beetle Face.png

Yes. That is the real name of these ants. They're pretty big and I haven't given one the opportunity to bite me considering the name. Maybe it's because I'm a female that they've left me alone lol.

Karoo BalByter.png

As you can see by this photo, this lens has quite a good ability for capturing bokeh which I'm keen to play around with and see what my results will be.

SpiderFly.png

This is probably the smallest thing that I've managed to photograph with this lens so far, it's a species of Cyclosa spiders, their common name is the Garbage Line Spider. This one is about 6mm long. I quite like them with their funny shapes and how well they tuck their legs in. They tend to collect their prey in their webs and then use it for camouflage as they blend into it.

These paper wasps also presented quite a challenge. My rules for photographing wasps:

  1. Don't get stung
  2. Be prepared to run away very fast
  3. Don't be stupid and go too close
  4. Don't get stung

Wapses1.png

These paper wasps aren't too aggressive but I don't like taking chances with insects that can sting you multiple times. I have been fortunate enough so far to not get stung but I have a feeling that one day I'm gonna take a photo of the wrong wasp in the wrong mood. My track record has been better with wasps than snakes. Bitten by a snake: 3 times. Been stung by a wasp: 0 times. The law of averages is bound to kick in at some point.

My daughter has also befriended the neighbour's one-eyed burmese looking cat. We call him Odin the Wanderer. He spends a fair amount of time in our yard now but our cats are not particularly fond of him. He has a very beautiful ice blue eye.

Odin the Wanderer.png

We've had a few new bird visitors here too. Yesterday this was the first Cape Wagtail I've seen since we've moved here. Cape Wagtails used to be very common but I read that their numbers declined due to the poisoning of worms and other bugs with insecticides in lawns. I've raised one of these from a baby and they are extremely intelligent little birds.

Cape Wagtail.png

Not particularly colourful compared to some of the other visitors like the Cape Weaver below. This little blighter visits our palm trees daily and strips them for nesting material. While I like weavers, they do act like spoilt brats when you put out a bird feeder and tend to chase away most of the smaller birds, so I'm a bit biased for the underbirds lol.

Cape Weaver Collecting nesting.png

We haven't been on too many adventures over the last week as some of it was used to prep for my mom in law's visit. She comes to Oudtshoorn once a month to do her monthly work inspections at this branch of her company.
Two weeks ago we found a bigger butchery with ridiculously good prices and when we told her about it, she asked if we could take her there to do her monthly meat shopping. She couldn't believe the selection they had and the great value for money. We of course stocked up with some more delicious biltong.
After that we wanted to show off the sunset light orchestra that we are spoiled with often here. We drove a way down the main road to a section with open veld (open land) on each side of the road surrounded by 180 degrees of mountain ranges.

As the sun descended further beyond the horizon, the colours deepened and became even more intense. These photos are unedited. She was quite speechless. Even on the drive home, the colours continued to develop and eventually my husband had to tell me to stop distracting him from driving because I was just raving about the sky. It seemed to be a great close to her visit as she left early the following morning and she seemed refreshed as if she'd had a mini holiday. I bought her some plants from the local nursery instead of flowers to take home with her.

Sunset Mid April.png

This lovely town continues to impress me with the calm atmosphere here and sense of community. I feel so much safer than I did in the city and it has had a huge positive impact on my mental health and overall well-being.

This month I'm hoping to focus more on propagating vegetables from seed and I'm hoping that if our fixed internet is hooked up soon that we'll be able to fully launch two of our three online businesses. We have had a few challenges like how to try and keep the front lawn alive while under level 4 water restrictions, but living here has lessened my depression and given me a whole new zest on life. Being able to take photographs again has really revitalized my soul and I can now fully comprehend how much I had been missing it. What a great place to get back into it.

That's all from me for now, I hope you've enjoyed reading and if you have any tips, hints or comments, please feel free :)

Cheers
Andy

All photographs in this post are originals taken by me.
Camera: Canon EOS 60D, Various lenses : EF-s 18-55mm; EF 75-300mm zoom; 14mm Wide Angle; Combo 70-200mm zoom; 200-300mm macro)

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Very nice Nature captures ! 😊

Thank you Barbara, much appreciated. Have a lovely evening.

I love macro photography so much! I've got a really nice lens which apparently has macro capabilities but I've never been able to get it working. You've got some lovely pics here - the little lizard is absolutely brilliant and that last one of the sky is just incredible!

Hello there. Thanks so much. You should really just play with your camera until you figure out what works, it's a lot more fun than reading the manual. The first two attempts at using my macro were quite hilarious, I couldn't see a freaking thing on the photo, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.
That skyline was just phenomenal, I can honestly say that was the most intense sunset I have seen in my life and I've seen quite a few lovely ones. Stay well and chat soon :)
Andy

Those sunset photos are stunning! Love your photos, especially the ice blue-eyed cat...

Hello again GoldenOak
Thanks so much for the message, glad you enjoyed the post and photos. I am very inspired by your daily cataloguing of what gets done, I think we often overlook how much we accomplish but having a collection of all our works in progress and the finished product helps a lot :)

Odin the wanderer was back in the garden last night but my tom cat was not happy about it, I'm hoping they will eventually make friends.

Have a great day.

Amazing shots. Love the lizard close up :)

Hello @phortun Thanks so much, I'm glad you enjoyed them. Those geckos are so elusive, I'm super chuffed that I got a good closeup.
Have a great Monday 🌸