We need a controlled experiment

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Don’t they say, “Never assume you know the answer to something that hasn’t been tried”? (And where should the question mark go in that sentence? Do I have it right? Or should I have rephrased it so it wasn’t even an issue?) (And who’s “they”? Or is that, “Who’s they?” Fucking quotes, man…) So while I can easily say, “It’s just superstition, don’t bother,” am I not performing due diligence by resorting to that? I’m no scientist (duh!) but I try to behave like one where it’s important.

With that lede out of the way and You The Reader inescapably intrigued, I’ll say that, two nights ago as I was looking over the black knight butterfly bush by the light of the headlamp, I came across several crab spiders, but remarked internally that I have never yet seen something here that I used to see every year at the old place, and that was, the jagged ambush bugs that also adored the butterfly bushes. I idly put this down to subtle differences in the environment, but only idly, because that didn’t necessarily make sense: the genus is present throughout the US. And then last night, just 24 hours (give or take) past wondering about that, I find this:

jagged ambush bug Phymata on black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii with unidentified butterfly prey
The crumpled and unmoving butterfly was the giveaway, because as you can see, the jagged ambush bug (Genus Phymata) is hard to distinguish even this close, though it’s center-frame. Seen from above its back, the head sits just behind that long-thin butterfly antenna, the body extending to the left and slightly upwards. The coloration is blending in with the reddish dead blossoms of the bush pretty damn well, even though being on one of the more active, healthy clusters would provide more concealment. I’ve seen this a lot: ambush bugs tend to stay on a cluster until it’s quite dead, one of the reasons that I always drop the severed clusters underneath when I’m dead-heading the bushes, because I’m almost guaranteed to clip one that’s still occupied, by either an ambush bug or a crab spider, and this makes it a little easier for them to climb back up and find a new spot.

A little closer now:

closer view of jagged ambush bug Phymata on black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii with prey
Yeah, it’s a little soft, but there are mitigating thingies. Ambush bugs are small, never getting longer than 15mm, so I had to be close to get this. But the cluster was actually a little above eye level on a long stalk, so it moved at the slightest provocation, which did not combine well with my holding a heavy rig up high with nothing to brace against, and I normally sway a little regardless – it was all a matter of trying to time when the combined swaying reached tight focus. Add in, even late at night, both the viewfinder and my glasses fogged almost immediately, and so within a couple of seconds I couldn’t see clearly enough to tell anyway, and had to pause to clear both. I was just after a couple of illustrations; I didn’t want to set up a tripod, branch anchor, and fan just to get a few frames of a subject I’ve done before anyway. I’m whining again, aren’t I?

But getting back to the title and opening statements, I might have to do some experiments on wondering about subjects that I haven’t spotted, and seeing if this influences finding them soon afterward. I’d probably need to ensure I’m wearing my lucky socks though.

[So you know, I haven’t worn socks in months, and even sandals have been avoided in favor of bare feet for the past several weeks – it’s been too hot to even consider them. I actually limit the amount of time I’m out in ‘public’ because I have to have footwear, which really does get uncomfortable fairly quickly.]

While out there, I decided to chase another subject I’d found earlier, one of the larger crab spiders I’ve seen, though on the dog fennel and not the butterfly bush.

large female crab spider Thomisidae on dog fennel Eupatorium capillifolium
Now, “larger” is relative, since she wasn’t large enough to cover my thumbnail, but for crab spiders (Family Thomisidae,) this is pretty big – most times, they run from 2-6mm in body length, but this one was pushing 10. I would suspect she’s gonna drop an egg sac soon.

That was full-frame, by the way. Let’s go in closer, since even with the conditions described (moaned about) above, I managed a reasonably sharp frame.

close inset of crab spider Thomisidae, showing eyes identifying this as likely Mecaphesa
So here’s the deal: BugGuide gives an identifying characteristic of Genus Mecaphesa as the anterior lateral (front outside) eyes being slightly larger than the median (inside,) which is clear here – but also list the species as normally ‘hairy’ which this isn’t, really; see the other illustrating images at that link. This is part of the fun of trying to provide accurate identification – there’s more work that goes into these posts than you might suspect. Yeah, I know, “And this is still what we get,” I hear you, shut up.

One last, because I was there and I want to.

extreme closeup of head of small juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis resting on mint plant
This tiny juvenile Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) was snoozing on a mint plant when I went in close, and cropped even closer for this – the head is literally smaller than my pinky nail. Calling it “green” isn’t doing justice to this palette – I personally wouldn’t even attempt to paint this accurately. You know, that’s why I’m a photographer…

Tip Jar 36: Infra-red photography

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

First off, I apologize for missing another Tip Jar. I got both under the gun on a deadline for last Monday, and under the weather with a chronic gut. I was attempting to have this up a day or so late, but realized it would be better if I delayed it further to flesh it out with more example images. So let’s delve into infra-red photography.

To start off with, infra-red refers to a very large bracket of light wavelengths, essentially meaning, “below red,” and more specifically applying to wavelengths in the rough range of 780 nanometers to 1 millimeter, or 1,000,000 nanometers – a hell of a large range. All of this is beyond what out eyes can see, and when we see footage of someone glowing from their body heat, caught on the infra-red cameras of, say, a police helicopter, that’s the far infra-red (hereafter, “IR”) – what we can capture with relatively normal equipment is roughly in the range of 780 to 1100 or so nanometers (nm,) the near IR, and does not involve body heat or anything like that – this will all be reflected sunlight, but still, sunlight that we can’t see ourselves.

Digital sensors, however, can capture into this range, as can specialty films. The key to a decent IR image is filtering out the visible sunlight to let the much weaker and less abundant IR come through, which requires a special IR filter – or sometimes not. We’ll look at these first.

selection of infrared pass filters
It’s important to note that there is a distinction in IR filters. Most (all?) digital cameras today have a filter that blocks infrared, meaning all wavelengths above 780nm – what is needed is an IR pass filter, often identified by the wavelengths it lets through. These are easy to distinguish, since IR blocking filters look like clear glass, usually with a faint color cast, while IR pass filters look black, period – they’re not letting through any wavelengths that we can see (or not much of them.) In the image, we have filters for wavelengths above 720nm, 950nm, and my old beat-up Lee 87C polyester filter in a homemade frame, permitting about 780nm. They all have different effects, as we’ll see.

NOTE 1: While researching this post, I found that the market for IR filters has changed drastically in the 11 or so years since I purchased all of these, probably due to the surge in IR security cameras, and they’ve gotten expensive anymore. The Lee pictured is discontinued, and comparable ones from Kodak and Wratten don’t seem to be below $50 – I probably paid somewhere in the realm of $8-15 for each of these. One not pictured, but used for some of the demos, is a simple, stupid trick: unexposed, developed slide film blocks IR, but in variable wavelengths, I believe. Not as good as, for instance, the 720 or 780 wavelength filters, but passable. I cut the unexposed leader from one of my processed rolls of medium format Provia 100F and fit that into a UV filter holder.

Now here’s part two. Since digital sensors can capture IR, they would overexpose surfaces that reflected IR strongly, which is how I stumbled onto doing this in the first place. But manufacturers since about 2005 have included an IR blocking filter over the sensors now, so virtually no modern digital camera can do this without modification. My old Canon Pro 90 IS can, though, as well as many older, basic digitals (look for something with less that 5 megapixels,) and you can still pursue this with infrared film.

NOTE 2: Many/most Canon EOS film cameras use an IR light to count sprocket holes when winding, which made reloading partially-shot rolls a breeze, and precise. It doesn’t register on any routine films, but it will fog the lower edge of IR films. This is not a big deal as long as you account for this and frame accordingly, but it’s better to use virtually any other camera.

Infra-red light is much weaker/thinner than visible light, so exposure times will go long, typically in the 1-8 second range – a tripod is necessary, and you’ll want to be shooting in nothing but bright, direct sunlight because things start to get murky even in haze. Different things reflect IR differently: foliage does so strongly, with evergreen trees being weaker, while the sky produces very little. Bark usually reflects almost none – depends on the species. Water reflects it well, but that means it only shows what’s bouncing off of it, and when it’s sky, well, it gets dark. Butterflies reflect well, lizards don’t, and skin tones, believe it or not, fall pretty much in the middle range, so people look largely like people. Let’s see some examples.

two versions of IR digital at roughly 780nm filtering, one tweaked for better effect
The top version is what the Canon Pro 90 produced with the Lee 780nm filter, faint purplish color cast and slightly weak contrast. The bottom version (which is on one of my business cards) has been reduced to greyscale and the curves adjusted for best effect. This was a perfectly clear morning and the sky was bright blue in visible light. The Pro 90, by the way, automatically adjusts for the filtered light and can even autofocus in IR, or most wavelengths anyway.

So let’s compare them all side-by-side:

same view through four different IR filters: slide film, 720nm, 780nm, and 950nm
We can see the slide film actually produces some blue in the sky, which seems a little odd since blue is at the opposite end of the spectrum – but then again, so are violet and magenta, coming through on the 720nm filter. Since we said infra-red starts at 780nm, both of these are letting through a bit of visible light, though it’s not a dividing line and we’re after the effect, not precision. You’ll also notice that the slide film is a bit softer than the dedicated 720nm filter, which itself shows some darkening (vignetting) in the corners; this is because I was shipped the wrong filter size for the camera, using a step-down ring to make it fit. I could eliminate this by zooming in slightly, or simply not worry about it, given the nature of the images anyway.

There’s little visible difference between the 780nm (Lee polyester) and 950nm filters, with one notable distinction: the 950 let’s through so little light that the exposure time jumped from 1 to 6 seconds and the Canon Pro 90 could no longer autofocus. While I locked the focus setting from the 780 to use for the 950, this wasn’t accurate, rendering this particular filter next to worthless for me.

Below, the 720 and 780nm versions were converted to greyscale, contrast increased until it filled the full dynamic range, and mid-tones tweaked slightly for best effect:

720 and 780nm IR mages converted to greyscale and contrast-enhanced
This produced some subtle differences, mostly in the rendering of darker portions, but the 780 version had almost nothing above the midpoint in brightness originally, requiring much more expansion than the 720. However, had the brighter leaves been more dominant in the frame, we’d have seen how much they exceeded the dynamic range in the 720 version, bleaching out to featureless white. While, in this case, I was trusting the exposure meter of the Pro 90, bracketing isn’t a bad idea.

I played around a little (a long time back) with IR film, too, where bracketing is almost certainly called for if you want the best results.

farm scene on infra-red film
depth-of-field scale from Olympus 50mm lens, showing IR focus markWhile this was with the 780nm filter, you can see that the dynamic range is closer to the results with the 720 in digital, just lacking color – easy to tweak into a full range by deepening the lower ends (or using contrast filters in the darkroom.) This was done with an old Olympus OM-10, though any film camera can handle it – but, there’s a specific thing that needs to be done. IR wavelengths, being longer than visible light, get bent more within the lens, which we got the hint of with the difference in the 780 and 950 test above. So we look at this illustration of an older lens with its depth-of-field marks. See how the right side pointer for the f4 depth is painted in red? That’s specifically for infra-red work; what you would need to do is, obtain sharp focus as normal, without the IR filter (since you’d see nothing,) then shift the focus the necessary amount to consider that red mark as ‘center’ – in this case, shifting the 5 meter mark on the focus ring until it sits at the red mark the same way it sits at the center mark now. This accounts for the shift that infra-red light goes through. Using a smaller aperture is also not a bad idea, since you’ll be using a tripod for the longer shutter speeds anyway.

More digital fun.

visible light image of morning glory Convolvulaceae blossoms and leaves
How do some colors render in IR? This can be a fun experiment.

same as previous scene, under 720nm filter reveling the presence of a Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis
Hah! Had you seen that anole in the previous image? After an initial shot showed the effect, I worked hard to stage this one so the anole was as subtle as possible while still being in plain sight, but it reveals that their skin reflects very little IR light, which makes sense since they’re exothermic and obtain some of their body warmth from, specifically, IR radiation. Meanwhile, the flowers themselves do actually register a little differently from the leaves, but the colors and striations are completely gone. This might be a different matter in ultra-violet light though, but that’s a lot harder to photograph…

Now, while it’s not hard to find older digital cameras that lack the IR filter of the later ones, it often takes some testing or research. But you can also purchase digital cameras modified specifically for IR work – or even do your own modification, though this is quite tricky; it’s on the docket for the old DReb of mine, still sitting in a drawer here, but – I’d still have to use lenses that possessed those IR marks, since such DSLRs were focused strictly through the viewfinder. I mean, will it autofocus? That remains to be seen, but I couldn’t check it ahead of time, only chimp at it afterwards. Also note that, if you purchase a camera or body so modified, you’re typically locked into the IR (pass) filter they install within, right where the IR (block) filter used to be. If you’re only toying with the idea, find an old digital and use a filter, like these, first – you may save yourself a significant expense and/or amount of tinkering.

All that said, it’s a fun branch of photography, one that I still play with from time to time, and produces distinctive effects, so if you have the opportunity, try it out! Just be sure to allow plenty of experimental time.

park gazebo on a clear summer day in infra-red

Until they get blinking lights

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Several days back, I looked out towards the pond in the early morning and saw this strange-looking web, largely because it was backlit.

web of spinybacked orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis with 'dotted' support strands
You have to admit, those ‘dotted’ support strands are distinctive – there really was only a narrow time of day that this would be so visible. Notice how tightly-spaced the orb portion of the web is, obviously targeted towards quite small insects, and how the support strands are curved, pulled tighter as the spider added more webbing in the orb. While it appears to be occupied in this image, it wasn’t when I walked closer for better images that would allow me to identify the species, and it was well over my head so even checking back wasn’t much of an option. I snagged the image as a curiosity but thought little more of it.

Until the next day, when another was found attached to the hosta plants alongside the back deck. I was busy then, so I vowed to return with the camera, but then forgot about it until after nightfall, when the web was not only unoccupied, it didn’t even exist – just the support strands. Ah, so a day hunter! I’m quite used to the various species that appear once it’s dark to spin a new web each night, dismantling it by day, but this appeared to be the opposite. So it wasn’t until the following day when I returned again to actually photograph the spider responsible.

spinybacked orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis in middle of web
It was cooperative and remained in place as I maneuvered around and played with framing and lighting, producing a nice surrounding halo from a break in the background foliage. Only about 8mm across the widest of those spines, this was easy to identify as a spinybacked orbweaver (Gasteracantha cancriformis,) and they have a moderate variation in colors, often with a more yellow ‘frosted’ back and even reddish spines. The tufts that make up the dotted appearance of their webs is thought to help prevent birds from crashing through it, something that the coloration probably also assists with, while the spikes discourage those insectivorous avians that might consider this a treat instead.

Also curious is the large gap between the center where the spider waits and the crossbars of the orb portion that would catch their prey, meaning any captures are going to occur removed a certain distance from the spider. I can’t imagine what the purpose of this is, except to help highlight the spider in the center (birds again,) or perhaps to isolate it from the morning dew – though they create the webs in the morning, so there shouldn’t be much opportunity for it to form in the first place. Hmmm…

closeup of back of spinybacked orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis in web
If you look very closely, you can see two of the eyes on top of the head, only because they have the barest of catchlight reflections. The species reminded me a lot of the common spined micrathena, but they appear distantly related, in separate genera. Its habit of disappearing at night prevented me from experimenting with UV light to see if it fluoresced like the micrathenas do – I suppose I could have captured one and done some tests in the dark, but I really had enough projects these past couple of weeks. Maybe later…

Can’t imagine the trauma

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus hiding under morning glory Convolvulaceae leaf
Out this morning gathering more images for the Tip Jar post tomorrow, I happened across this guy, anxiously hiding away from the morning glory blossom back there. This doesn’t make any sense to me, since all the blossoms that I’ve seen (save for Star Trek and Audrey II) have been distinctly non-aggressive but, you know, that’s towards me, who outweighs them by a factor of a few thousand. Who am I to say that this little frog doesn’t have his reasons? Unimaginable things can happen out there, and like Jane Goodall established, our mere presence can change the dynamics and behavior, at least until we’re accepted. I should probably spend a lot more time among the flowers, learn what being pollinated feels like…

ADDENDUM. While writing this post, The Girlfriend came down (remember, I’m in the dungeon down here,) and I took her out to see the new blue-ish glories that had appeared overnight. While there, a lizard was scampering around nearby, and eventually got into the frame with the frog.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched on morning glory Convolvulaceae leaves alongside juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus
It must be said, the lizard hadn’t the faintest concerns about the morning glory blossoms, and in fact, I missed a great shot where it was perched atop one because the camera wasn’t in hand – you hear that a lot, don’t you? However, I believe I did get some more illustrations for tomorrow’s post, so there’s that. And these. Things are moving again.

Dafuq, man?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Yeah, it’s been nine days since my last post, skipping over the Tip Jar even – readers, were they not imaginary (or even if they were I guess,) gonna think I died or went over to the Dark Side, i.e. some form of lame-ass social media. But no – I’ve been singularly lacking in motivation while at the same time tackling far too many other things. There are still a few photos and video clips piling up, I just haven’t been doing anything with them yet.

For now, we have an interloper in the garage, discovered while I was looking for something distinctly unlike this:

female eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina found in garage
For a day or three previous to this, The Girlfriend thought she had been smelling something that had died in the garage, so when I spotted this one, I figured the worst, but no, she was quite healthy, insofar as I could tell anyway – she was active and responsive at least. However, this is what we get for leaving the door cracked for the invasive lizards, but at least it wasn’t the red-bellied water snake we’ve seen in there on two occasions. What the utter fascination with the garage is, I have no idea, but this little sheila (an eastern box turtle, Terrapene carolina carolina, and definitely a female) was all the way in the back and facing even deeper.

female eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina in lawn after removal from garage
While it’s generally not a good idea to move turtles too far from their location, since they have their own ideas and instincts as to where they should be going, we had to believe that the garage was a dead-end, even hotter than the outside temperatures, and sorely lacking in either water or wild strawberries. So we took her down closer to the pond in a shady part of the lawn and left her to her own devices, knowing it was a short trek to water at least – box turtles are largely terrestrial, not quite counting as tortoises, and can do without water for a while, but still prefer dense and shaded woods. Meanwhile, we’ve been attempting to crack the door enough for lizards, but not enough for turtles now. We wouldn’t even leave it open for the lizards if they didn’t hurtle inside as soon as they saw the door was open, meaning we had to ensure that they weren’t trapped inside.

More is coming. Seriously. Notice that I didn’t say when…

It should be flatter

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

My ass, that it, since I’ve been sitting on it for too long, regarding posts at least. I’ve had some pics and ideas lined up for a while now, and have simply been doing other things. So let’s get to it.

large female golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes not long before producing an egg sac
Some time back, there was a post featuring the detail captured from the molted exoskeleton of a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes) – actually this very specimen, unless she swapped webs with another one night. I was too late to capture any part of the process, but then many days later, I came across another that was actively molting, and trotted back inside to get the camera. I was almost too late for that one, too.

golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes in later stages of molting old exoskeleton
The details are a little hard to make out without close examination, and believe me, it was even more bizarre-looking in the dimmer light of the headlamp. Since the spider’s legs are so long, they’re the last things to be slid out of the old exoskeleton, so the body hangs down below and the bunched legs are all lined up above like some kind of weird seed pod. At top, the old clothes are looking like mere debris – yes, that spider just exited that exoskeleton. But it does not help that an opportunistic male is in the way between the legs and the abdomen, just muddying up the view even more. There was nothing I could do about any of this, taking place as it was above one of the Japanese maples – I couldn’t even change shooting angle, but I could wait while the female spun slowly on the end of the anchoring web that the old skin was still attached to.

And yes, the males are that small compared to the females, which is fairly typical for the arachnid kingdom. What isn’t typical is that the male for this species is not only around quite a bit once the female is even close to adulthood, but apparently they can mate multiple times. This one had heard those details and was attempting to make the most of them.

male golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes attempting to mate with newly-molted female
After molting, virtually all arthropods are soft and vulnerable, until their new chitin hardens and dries, so after the legs popped free (which happened almost as soon as I started taking photos,) she simply hung there biding her time, and to all appearances, the male thought this was the perfect opportunity, perhaps because she was unlikely to be defensive – spider courtship is notorious for being fraught with danger, for the males at least. So he was clambering around, though I couldn’t tell if he was having any success or not. We’ll go in closer, due to popular demand.

inset image of male golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes attempting to mate with newly molted female
We’re looking at the female’s underside here, and the epigastric furrow, or reproductive opening for females, is a flap-like opening on the abdomen that normally sits closed, and I’m not entirely sure, but for this species I think it sits immediately below the yellow stripe here. The males, meanwhile, prime their pedipalps (the ‘mouthfingers,’ looking clublike in males) with semen in preparation for mating, and the inserts them into this opening, occasionally losing one in the process. So they’re not actively mating here, but he’s hoping at least. I’m pleased that his eyes were actually captured, given that his body length is perhaps 10mm (not counting the legs.)

But now, here’s another scale comparison, because I could. You recall when some of the newly-terrestrial green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) were featured earlier, and I did the posts in this order for a reason. Because immediately after getting frames of the spiders, I went over to the morning glories where I’d already seen one of the bebbeh frogs, and obtained a few frames of this diminutive specimen at the same magnification, specifically so that they could be overlaid as a direct comparison in an animated gif (pronounced, “GY-ro.”) To wit:

animated gif of golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes overlaid with very young green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus at exact same scaleYep, both full-frame, same distance and magnification – really drives it home, doesn’t it? The webs of the golden silk orbweavers can be over a meter across, while the anchoring strands can extend for many meters, depending on where they decide is an ideal spot; one has been anchored to a post on the kayak dock for weeks now, even though the web is well out of the way (it’s been too hot to do any kayaking, plus the pond level was too low until recently anyway, so no biggie.) Meanwhile, this very female moved her web a few days later, switching it from above the Japanese maple to alongside it, which The Girlfriend forgot while she was picking up sticks after a storm – that was an encounter she wasn’t thrilled about, though no harm came to either. It helps a little that the web of this species is very strong and is usually felt before someone can blunder through it. Still, one of the things we deal with on the property.

Tip Jar 35: Basic darkroom printing

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

We did film developing last week, so let’s tackle the next step: making a print from the negatives we now have (right?)

Making a print is slightly more involved, but not significantly, though it has a greater investment in equipment, prep, and space. The big thing is, you need an actual darkroom now, but making one isn’t all that hard.

Darkroom. You will need space for an enlarger (45-60cm square counter space,) and three developing trays sized for your paper, let’s assume 8×10 for the time being – that means 10×12 trays or thereabouts (print paper is still sized in SAE inch measurements, so the trays are roughly 30×35 cm, the paper roughly 20×25.) There will be opportunities to drip chemicals, so a surface that won’t be harmed – standard countertop treatments are usually fine. A little more space for chemicals (3) and beakers. And most helpful, a sink with running water, big enough for the prints you’re making. The room must be light-tight, but not as distinctly as for loading film – I’ve hung a heavy black sheet over the door, but it was an interior door so the room outside wasn’t bright, and doing it at night with the lights turned off out there can help. Generally, a bathroom is ideal, and none of this has to be permanent or mounted; I operated one in a shared apartment where I tore it all down when I was done, the enlarger being stored in the attached linen closet. My first darkroom was in a closet without the running water, so I trotted the prints down the hall to the bathroom when I was done, after floating them in a rinse tray, but it’s much easier with running water.

Equipment. The enlarger of course, but these can be had for the neighborhood of $50-100, varying a lot – some people think they’ll get more money from the retro crowd, others will give them away if they believe you’ll actually use them. Nothing fancy is necessary, especially when just starting out. Diffuser enlargers are smaller, lighter, and cheaper, but often produce uneven light, brighter towards the center of the print (sometimes virtually unnoticeable,) while condenser enlargers are more evenly lit, but larger and heavier from the lenses within that distribute the light better.

A safelight for monochrome paper. This can be as simple as a light bulb that you replace your normal light with, or a dedicated light fixture, but the type is really more crucial for color work than B&W. A darkroom easel big enough for your paper – often these are two-sided with smaller print sizes available on the flip side. A decent timer – enlarger timers are sweet, often set up to turn off the safelight and turn on the enlarger simultaneously, but these are not absolutely necessary and still often a tad expensive; still, one with an audible tone when done so you don’t have to watch it, which might be harder under the safelight. Trays (3, perhaps 4) big enough for your paper. Monochrome print paper – start off with a generic, all purpose, but resin-coated is highly recommended (this soaks up virtually no water and thus doesn’t break down as quickly.) Also, get more than you think you’ll need, because you’ll need practice. Cotton gloves to handle negatives. Tongs or rubber gloves for handling prints in the trays – tongs are far better and you shouldn’t have to keep switching gloves. A way to hang prints to dry, though I’ve also just stuck them to the wall in the shower stall, but you might crumple a corner when they fall after drying.

Useful, but not absolutely necessary, at least at first. An enlarger or grain magnifier for focusing. Contrast filters for your enlarger, though if you’ve snagged one with a color head you’re all set. An exposure guide, a piece of clear plastic with gradient pie sections that tell you what exposure works. A soft rubber squeegee to wipe excess water from the prints after rinsing. Paper trimmer for those nice clean edges. Film cleaner to remove smudges from negatives, and nose grease from damaged negatives (more on that below.)

Chemicals. Developer appropriate for your paper, stop bath (this is usually the exact same stuff you’d use for film,) and fixer, again appropriate for your paper. Temperature usually isn’t as crucial for prints, and room temperature is often fine. You should be able to do at least eight prints in the same chemicals before needing replenishing, and this is recommended, to maximize your time in the darkroom setup, and because you’ll likely be doing test prints and reprinting for better results – expect to be in there for an hour or three. So, ventilation isn’t a bad idea, especially since your light-proofing efforts will just about eradicate normal air flow. Stop bath is by far the worst smelling, being almost the same as vinegar (which can be used in a pinch,) but the level of actual harm that the chemicals can do to you is virtually nil. I’ve spent days in darkrooms and look at me…

The process. All set up, paper and negatives handy, chemicals mixed, trays set out, door closed, safelight on? Then let’s begin.

Negative placed in the negative or carrier tray of the enlarger, emulsion side down (this is the dull side, often doesn’t feel as smooth, but you shouldn’t be touching that surface anyway – use the cotton gloves.) Set your easel in place with a piece of plain white paper within, and turn on the enlarger (making sure your print paper is safely hidden away.) This is where you adjust the height of the enlarger for your print size, and obtain sharp focus, using the magnifier as needed. Looks good? Turn the enlarger off.

author in last darkroom, far too many years agoPlace your print paper in the easel, and the exposure guide over top if needed. Set your timer for the appropriate amount; if you’re using the exposure guide, this will be listed on it, usually a minute. Then just start the timer and turn the enlarger back on simultaneously, switching it off when the timer alarm sounds (actual darkroom timers handle all this automatically.)

[Note: print paper can still be exposed/fogged over time under many safelights, so minimize the amount of time the paper is out, and always close the box completely between prints.]

Immediately move the print paper into the developer, set the timer for that, and gently agitate it within the developer during the entire time – you can nudge it around with the tongs, or gently tip and lower the tray a little to swish the chemicals back and forth. You will actually be seeing the image appear during this, which is way cool.

Times up? Move the print to the stop bath, and like film, only about thirty seconds (or as recommended on the chem or paper instructions.) Time here isn’t crucial, just don’t underdo it or significantly overdo it.

Now into the fixer, and set the timer again – this is usually the longest chem bath as it locks the image in. Gently agitate, it just doesn’t have to be constant.

Times up? Move to the rinse sink, or at least a water-filled tray or bath. Rinse under running water for at least a minute, but more is better – if you’re using the rinse tray, you’ll transport the print(s) to your water source later to do this proper rinse, since the tray isn’t enough.

Hang to dry, after using the squeegee if you have one. Once dry, you do with it as you please.

Now, if you’ve used the exposure guide, this should have given you the proper time to expose your ‘keeper’ print, but chances are, you’re going to redo it for better effect, at least until you get the hang of things. First off, don’t judge the darkness and contrast of the print while in the stop bath, since this is usually colored, but even in the clear fixer, the safelight will fudge your judgment, so the print should appear a little too dark under that. It’s best to judge in regular light, and if your paper is tightly closed and the print fully fixed (rinsing doesn’t have to be complete at this stage,) you can turn on the regular light to examine your results. You will redo prints – it takes a little practice to get things right. This is where you might do:

Contrast adjustment. Contrast filters are colored filters to fit into the enlarger to increase contrast (duh!) – pale yellows for low contrast increases, down to deep magenta for very high contrast. But you may ask, why colored filters if I’m using both B&W film and paper? (I know I did.) It’s because print paper actually has a color sensitivity, especially over time, even when it only produces shades of grey and black – this is why your safelight can be red or orange and not, like, blue. The yellow or magenta light affects how deeply the dark areas of the image will develop versus the light area. When using contrast filters, exposure times will need to be lengthened.

You can also use higher contrast papers, and specialty developer as well, but you’re locked into those results, unless you have multiple papers and mixed chemicals, which you may eventually get into.

Dodging and burning, otherwise known as selectively lightening (dodging) or darkening (burning) only portions of the image. During the paper exposure under the enlarger, you can block some of the light getting to the paper to lighten a select region, or most of it except for that region to darken it (remember that we’re working with inverse light, so the more light that reaches the paper, the darker the print gets.) This can be done one of two ways. If you’re good, you can just use your hands a little above the easel to block the light for a portion of the exposure time. But it’s usually more accurate to use a piece of black cardboard cut into shape, with the edges roughened and irregular, supported by a stiff wire. You don’t want it against the paper because you want soft edges, so the light should diffuse around the edges – greater distance from the paper means softer shadow edges. Move it around during exposure to soften the edges more and make the effect blend well, and again, only a portion of the exposure time – how much depends on how much you need to do.

Touching up. Hopefully you won’t have to do this, but on occasion, you get a scratched negative, or a stray hair gets into the enlarger. The scratch will leave a darker streak across the print, and the best thing to do is reprint it, but treat the scratched emulsion side of the negative with a very small amount of mineral oil or, believe it or not, nose oil – yes, just rub you fingers on your nose bridge and wipe them across the emulsion gently. Either of these fill the scratch and diffuse the light going through, and usually make the scratch disappear in the print. Remember to clean the negative thoroughly after printing, because both of these will damage the emulsion over time.

Hairs will leave white/grey lines across the print. Again, reprinting is best, but you can also use touching dyes on the print to color these in (as well as any bugaboos from the film processing.) This takes a lot of practice, and should be done very gradually. Dyes are thin and essentially stain the image a little darker, and are cumulative, so you can easily match the light greys of the print, and build up to the darker ones. Always use an ultra-fine point brush for these. Back when I worked in a photo lab, I got quite handy with these on color prints, though when you go too far, you end up reprinting anyway.

But yes, this is where digital editing is way better/easier than the darkroom.

So, these last two Tip Jar posts give you an idea of what the process is like and what you’d need, but shouldn’t be treated as a definitive guide – there are entire books out there on the subjects. Again, it’s not too involved, but it is an entirely new thing to learn, with lots of quirks to get very specific control of the end result – much more so with the printing process. While it might seem like a lot to get into, it’s extremely cool to produce your own prints – I’d recommend at the very least trying it in a class where you find one available. Just trust me on this.

A note on that image above, which was my last active darkroom, far too many years ago. That’s a basic diffuser enlarger, so small and light, but you can see the light leak around the side – this only occurs during exposure and doesn’t reach the paper in the easel, but could start to fog any other paper left out. The image on the easel, however, has been tweaked. The original was an eight-second exposure by the light of the safelight, but having the enlarger on for that long would have bleached out the ‘print’ image, so the enlarger was only on for a second. For the remainder of the time, the easel was illuminated by the safelight, so the ‘print’ image was tinted red-orange by this – I digitally desaturated this and increased contrast, and dodged the far edge a little. I really should have gotten the safelight out of the pic, but there wasn’t the room to do it – this was in a little half-bathroom and you can see the shadows on the back wall, while the other is just behind my back – you don’t need much more space than that, though more makes it easier.

Does a bear…

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… yark in the yard?

A few days ago, The Girlfriend pointed out this curious mound of… something… in the grass not 7 meters from the window to Deep 13. Initially, I said, “Bear shit,” based on what appeared to be berry seeds, then looked closer and suspected it was an old patch of fungus that was fading away, but I wasn’t sure of that. Later on, I put on some rubber gloves and checked it in detail.

what appears to be a collection of regurgitated persimmons in yard, author's fingers for scale
Those things that look individual, are, and appear that they might be persimmons, though the persimmon tree in the immediate neighborhood isn’t ripe yet. But little to no digestion seems to have occurred, so I’m guessing that these have been regurgitated instead – possibly because a bellyful of unripe persimmons is enough to do that. The cricket, however (near my fingertips,) is a later addition.

I’ve been meaning to get a surveillance camera set up for that side of the house, and had been stalling on it, but this was enough to kick the process back into gear. Unfortunately, the time I tackled it was during the late morning on one of the hottest days, a heat index over 40°c, and I got badly overheated tackling this and one other task, even though I was out far less than an hour – it’s brutal out there. Worse, however, is that the camera system works great, and triggers to record on movement.

“But isn’t that what you want, dipshit?” you ask, and yes, it is – to a degree. I want to see the bears and deer and foxes and owls and whatever else in the fur- or feather-bearing classes that visit. What I do not want to see is the only thing that I’ve found triggering the recorder so far, which is moths – lots and lots of goddamn moths. There will be dozens of clips in the morning, at times spaced only a few minutes apart – I got lucky once and it went for better than thirty minutes without a trigger. The IR illumination bounces back from moths fiercely, producing brilliant white spots against the deep grey of the distant background grasses and trees, and as yet I have not found a way to prevent this.

IR surveillance camera frame of moth flying too close to camera
Sorry about the quality – no way to export yet, so this is a smutphone shot of the TV screen. I’ve dubbed this “Arthur” – stay with me here
An American black bear will be very subtle against the background, unless it’s close (well, as close as the chunder shown at top,) so I don’t exactly want to reduce the sensitivity of the camera triggers. What I need is an algorithm that takes little (or big) white spots wavering around at high speed and deletes all such recordings.

This equipment is all second-hand, because I tried for a while to get IP cams to play nice with a Linux system but that was a lot of wasted time, disappointing after having such a system running on Windows with surprisingly little trouble. So when someone offered a standalone system with its own harddrive, we jumped on it.

screen grab of moth captured close to IR surveillance camera
But it’ll be a boon for starting some YouTube channel about supernatural hoohahs, because look at this lovely example of a “rod,” which is… well, I can’t keep track of whatever a rod is supposed to be according to the ancient aliens crowd; it might be a ghost, or an alien, or a multi-dimensional manifestation (which, technically, it is.) In reality though, it’s simply an insect captured at a shutter speed slower than its wingbeat – that sine-wave outer shape is only its wings.

So, if we capture video of something interesting, I’ll make sure to feature it – but don’t be sitting there waiting, because I get frustrated very quickly with going through clip after clip of stuff just like this and find better things to do, so if a bear or a sasquatch is captured, I’m liable to have given up watching before I get to it.

Frog break, this time

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The video sorting continues apace – still a lot to go, but much more than that done. Still, we need another post, so we’ll check in on the new froglets appearing around Walkabout Estates now.

There have been a couple on the morning glories outside Deep 13 recently, so naturally I chose the smallest.

young juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on leaf of morning glory Convolvulaceae
That’s enough for scale, right? We all know how big morning glory leaves are? No, I’m not leaving it at that, especially when this one was pretty cooperative.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on author's thumb
At this age, the green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) are somewhat mellow, and as long as you don’t move too quickly, you may convince them to clamber onto your finger. This one, in fact, needed a little convincing to get back off, having settled in nicely.

Another, roughly the same size, this time on The Girlfriend’s hand.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on The Girlfriend's hand
The lighting was better for this one, though I like the previous pose/composition better. You can tell these are different specimens by looking at the dark borders to the lateral white stripe.

Another about the same size, but this time a Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis) on the sweet potato vines out front.

very juvenile Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis on sweet potato leaf
Obviously a grey, and the Copes are the only variety we have around here. This was the first newly-untadpoled one I’d found, though I emptied quite a few tadpoles from the watering cans into the pond, since the idiot adults kept using them to deposit eggs within.

As soon as it starts getting dark, a few resident greens emerge from their daytime hiding spots around some of our windows and start hunting the insects that are attracted to the light, which means we often leave the lights on in two of the windows overnight, and the frog are certainly taking advantage because we can see them growing larger, not to mention the occasional capture in action (I need to try to get that on video, but the video light outside the window might draw the insects away from the glass.) Another tiny specimen paused on the glass while I had the camera in hand.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus on window next to author's finger
The windows are double-pane insulated glass, which produced a reflection of the froglet’s feet down below. On a neighboring pane, one of the largest adults I’ve seen was also hunting, so we have a size comparison, taken moments apart.

large adult green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus on window trim alongside author's finger
So there’s a direct comparison between being newly-emerged from the water, and how big they can actually get (which, granted, isn’t big – bullfrogs can get larger than my fist, and we have at least one such specimen down at the pond.)

Coming in from doing the partial lunar eclipse the other night, I had the camera and long lens in hand when I spotted a rare opportunity, this time on the kitchen window: two juvies in close proximity. I had to back off across the kitchen because that lens doesn’t focus within 2.5 meters, and then fire off the on-camera flash, and then adjust my angle to eliminate most of the bounceback from the glass and try again, but I did record them for posterity.

two very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus from underneath, perched on kitchen window
We’ve seen as many as five frogs hunting on this one window at once, three juvies and two adults, and given that the insects are horrendous out there and going out with the headlamp means dealing with a swarm, we’re happy to encourage their feeding. I’d carry a couple around with me if I thought I could train them for it.

[Seriously, I’ve actually gone out on the worst evenings wearing a mask to prevent inhaling any insects – it’s happened more than once, and one went so far up in my sinus that it couldn’t be sneezed or blown out, and had to be washed out with the neti pot. Rat bastard.]

And finally, one from last night, that I enlisted The Girlfriend’s help with.

very juvenile Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched on author's finger, photo by The Girlfriend
Again on the morning glories, this one was a silvery color tinged with green, but if you look closely under the eye, you’ll see the vestige of a faint diagonal white stripe down to the mouth, a trait of the grey treefrogs – they haven’t developed much other distinguishing coloration at this age.

Oh, sorry, not the final one – I forgot I had a couple images that I never got around to posting, from a month ago, but they’re topical now. During one of the rainy periods, one large adult Copes grey was calling on a tree not far outside Deep 13, and I approached with the camera but figured the headlamp would alert it too much, preventing it from calling while I watched. Still, I got the throat partially inflated, which is how it sits between calls.

adult Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched in crook of tree between calls
The Girlfriend and I were nearby while this one was bellowing out its desire for companionship, and soon located it. Amusingly, while it had paused its calling, The Girlfriend mimicked its call – and it responded in kind.

adult Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched in crook of tree, actively calling
I wouldn’t have thought this would happen, given that neither of us can get particularly close to the sound of a grey treefrog, but they carried on a brief ‘conversation,’ so there was little doubt. Granted, it might have thought she was a competitor, albeit one with a speech impediment, but it worked either way.

These, by the way, sit as a precursor to some other pics that I have coming, so more are on the way. I’m endeavoring not to sidetrack myself too much or I’ll never finish the sorting.

I need a break

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I mean, it’s been three days without a post – what am I breaking from? From sorting video clips, of which I got too far behind on. I am doing what I should be doing with the still photos, which is adding details to a spreadsheet as I go – species, behavior, location, et cetera. It’s virtually necessary with the videos since there is no adequate thumbnail program to skim through them quickly, so without a spreadsheet, I have to watch the clips to see what’s on them, and I’ve done this before; searching back and forth for that one that shows the wood duck killing the bear takes far too much time. So I’m being conscientious and saving myself future time by spending it now to catalog properly.

But this means watching every clip almost all the way through to see what it actually contains, and then adding those details to the spreadsheet. It helps, slightly, in that I delete almost half of what I’d shot, but I still have to watch them to see that they’re worthless. It takes a while, and makes me buggy fairly quickly, so frequent breaks are in order. I can’t imagine doing this every day.

Thus, I’m on break, and posting a few pics from yesterday, just for the hell of it (and because I’m not up to writing up the details on the other pics I have sitting in the folder awaiting treatment – they’ll be along.) These were obtained yesterday afternoon as the clouds got dramatic. The weather did not – it remained hot and still – but the clouds tried to pretend otherwise.

growing thunderhead with crepuscular rays breaking past
Which works better: the more direct focus on the individual growing ‘mushroom’ with the distinct diagonal of shadow, or the wider shot that shows more rays but more trees?

trees and thunderheads and crepuscular rays
From the yard, I wasn’t getting any better view than this – I should have been down at the waterfront, but that was just far enough away that the view would have been at least a little different, if the clouds didn’t shift entirely in the time that it would take to get down there. I also should’ve taken my cue to go down about an hour later to actually watch sunset on the water, but I didn’t. I did turn around a bit to see what lay in that direction, again using the trees because there were no majestic condors wheeling against the sky for a focal point.

growing cumulonimbus clouds behind trees with deep blue sky
I probably couldn’t have gotten a better blue than this at any other time, though it might have been nice to get a little sunlight on the trees and not have them silhouetted in this way. Never happy…

Okay, back to the grind. The nice part is, eventually I’ll put together the video clips I’ve been stalling on all summer, and have a feature here.

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