Sometimes the nicest images are just around the corner. If your favourite subject is nature photography but your don´t have the luck to live in Alaska, Canada or some of the other wildlife-"hot spots" you simply can´t take images of bears, moose or wolfes. In Austria it is almost impossible to shoot any wildlife at all.

But there is one type of photography you can do all over the world: close up photography. Flowers and insects can be found almost everywhere. You don´t have to travel around the globe to take images of bugs, butterflies or flowers. If you have a garden of your own and let the grass grow a little higher in some parts - flowers and insects will be there.

I found this Hypogymna morio at the lower end of my garden that was already in full shade. Though I used a tripod I raised ISO to 400ASA to get at least 1/40s to stay away from the 1/15-1/30s exposure times because they really very sensitive and it´s hard to get a sharp image with these times. I shot this image without mirror lock up and timer - I just waited for the wind to calm down and hold my breath. I think that the damping of the mirror in the D2H is excellent as I never had a problem with this kind of shots since I use the D2H.

This image also shows the advantages of a long macro lens: 1. more distance between lens and subject and 2. the background of the image is easier to control ( as it takes only a very small portion of the field ) and this results in a better out of focus area. You can take such images with a 90mm lens as well and maybe even with a 60mm but a longer lens makes the job simpler. And there is another great advantage: 3. longer macros are usually equiped with a tripod mount that makes verticals easy.

The image is slightly cropped as it wasn´t possible to get both tentacles sharp and so I moved back to increase the depth of field. The constrast was changed from low to high in Capture to give the image more punch.

settings: A-Mode, 1/40@f8, -0.3 exp., 400 ASA, WB: cloudy -3, Gitzo tripod