I woke this morning to a misty windless world. I have been thinking of focus stacking landscapes for a while but it is generally too breezy. I do have an excellent 24mm tilt/shift lens but the tilt is virtually impossible for me to adjust accurately enough for front to back focus without having the camera plugged into the laptop. No sooner had I got set up than a gentle breeze arrived. I still went ahead and just cleaned up the stack in Zerene. It’s far from ideal but marginally better than nothing.
It was back to the van for breakfast and by the time I’d finished and washed up the sun was out and the insects were far too lively. I did catch a micro moth, these are very obliging moths and will stay roughly where I put them until I coax them to somewhere they don’t want to be.
I popped this leaf and raindrop on a fence post and coaxed the moth onto the leaf. I couldn’t get it to sit behind the drop. Little tinker. Maybe it saw a giant version of itself and was frightened.
It stays quite happily on the edge of the plastic tub I scoop them up in.
It will readily sit on the bit of thin card I use to move it around but will it stay on a leaf……not a cat in hells chance. I am not sure of the ID but will go for Coleophoridae sp. For a rather dull moth it has got great eyes. These were taken at 3:1 and at 4:1 you can see the compound elements in it’s eyes but I failed to get it focussed tight enough.
I blame Andrew and his father Ken we were sampling the falling down water last night and discussing how someone as bigoted and offensive as Donald Trump could even be considered as a U.S. presidential candidate or considered for anything but certification, to give us a bit more insight into the machinations of a lunatic fringe we watched some Fox News. It was hilarious so we popped some Amy Macdonald on the music box before one of us had an accident.
Yesterday whilst out wandering I found my first edible fungus of the year.
Slippery Jack; Suillus luteus. These are not really worth the bother of preparing as you have to peel away the slimy skin and they don’t really taste of anything unless dried and put in omelettes or mixed with rice. Edible in this case means they will not harm you though if you eat the slimy skin you will have to be fast off the blocks to get to the karzi in time. There were dozens of them so I’ll maybe make the effort and dry some. You will often see them with a black slimy ring on the stalk. That has to be wiped off as well. A lot of faff for little end result. A bit like the damn moth, Donald Trumps mother’s labours and the focus stacking.
