Snowdrop Shoot at Garston Wood

Went out on the first macro venture of the new year to Garston Wood, a RSPB reserve in Dorset.  I’ve been there before so I knew there would be a small patch of snowdrops to shoot.  Went equipped with my 100mm Cannon F2.8 lens, the MPE-65mm, a wide angle lens, flash, tripod and focusing rail.

As it transpired I used solely the 100mm lens on the snowdrops, without flash as I was supporting the lens on a tripod and my focusing rail.  I took around 40 shots in the field in various orientations and composition.  The following shot is my personal favourite of the day, a simple close up at F3.2 to blur the background out.  All shots taken at ISO100 on 50D

The other image slightly disappoints me in what I had set out to achieve in that the front petal is not quite in focus, but I quite like the line of composition.  If there’s some about next trip I will try to perfect the shot.

Whilst at the woodland also had a dig around in the leaves looking for bugs, specifically spring-tails.  Although I failed to find them on this occasion, I did find a nice spider, who posed for my MPE-65mm lens, with my flash set manually to 1/32nd power ISO100.  Fairly pleased with the result as it was first time in a while since using the MPE-65mm, this time handheld.

Map of Location