Graham

Hi Paul, The monthly challenges we did in the past were not a contest between members, no winners or losers, instead more of a self-imposed inspirational type of thing. Someone would post a close-up bug photo and for those up to the challenge, they would try to tye a realistic replica. It's fun stuff. I just pinned a topic that has links to all of the 2005 challenges. Graham

Wow, thank you Johan. I feel the urge as well. For the past 18 months I've been really busy away from my tying desk. This morning I set up some new lighting and photography stuff and I plan on spending a lot more time at my tying desk this year. Your stonefly rocks!!! Graham

Thanks Ulf, At first I was inspired by Oliver Edwards and David Martin, now I'm inspired by a number tyers, many of which live abroad, and post their work here. This Salmonfly tyed by Paul is great inspiration for me, and later today I plan on pulling out my vials of preserved Salmonflies for a closer look. If you guys want. I'll take some macro photos to share, and maybe we can start 2008 with a stonefly challenge. Sure would be cool having monthly realistic challenges like we did back in 2005. Graham

Fantastic work Paul, on so many levels. I have one of Dales signature salmonfly's and it's the most highly detailed realistic fly in my collection, the legs are insanely nice. I really appreciate your photos especially the ones showing mistakes and corrections. I like to experiment and constantly make mistakes and I've finally learned to take notes. I love your dragonfly, sure makes me feel proud. And your stonefly is pure art. I can't wait to see it finished. Graham

Very nice and very scary, a great spider! The eyes look interesting as well. Graham

Hi Henrick, I also want to welcome you to the forum and also say that I love all four of the flies you posted. I was trying to choose a favorite, but I can't, they are all amazingly beautiful, realistic and lively looking. I particularly like the way you make, shape and tye the legs, they appear so delicate and super realistic. I'm also very much looking forward to seeing more of your flies, you sure have some serious creativity and tying skills. Graham

Beautiful image Mokai, nice work. Graham

Cool shot! Makes me wish I was there!

Hi Lynn, I think a nice non-top-shelf combo for the Nikon D200 is the Nikon 18-200 and the Sigma 105 macro. I really burden myself on stream carrying a collection of lenses, and changing them frequently when dust of moisture is in the air can be worrysome, and having an 18-200 would allow for shooting all day without changing lenses, except for macro shots. I think the 18-200 sells for about $800, which isn't too bad considering how versatile this lens is. I love shooting fast moving birds and the 18-200 would likely not focus as fast as a 2.8 or prime f/4, so I carry a 70-200 /2.8 as well as a 300 f/4 and a TC-14. Seems like there's always tradeoffs, such as, a super versatile lens like an 18-200 will likely have a touch of distorsion at the maximum and minimum focal ranges, light-fall-off and softness in the corners, chromatic aborations, etc, but these are things that likely would never be noticed by 99.99% of those admiring your images. The late Galen Rowell often used the lightest most inexpensive Nikon lenses to capture his incredible images. Some of the same lenses that came with my Nikon N80 kit several years ago. If I ever have to lug camera gear to mountain tops like Galen did, I would likely take my light weight kit lenses with me, confident that it's the photographer not the lenses that make beautiful photographs. I just pulled those lenses out of their dusty bag, they are the Nikon 50mm 1.8, 28-80 zoom 3-5.6, and the 70-300 4-5.6. The 50mm 1.8 is a great little lens, super lightweight, nice for portraits, and likely good on-stream as well. I can't get over how light these lenses feel when compared to faster glass. I think I'll keep these lenses on my desk and take them ouside to play with later. Graham

Thank you JH, I really don't know all of the answers, and likely never will, but I very much enjoy tackling the challenges. A couple of days ago I ordered a waterproof Lowepro backpack, the DryZone 200 in gray and black. (I got a Great price $217 with free shipping and no tax from a store in Colorado). I plan on visting the Sierra again within the next couple of weeks and plan on bringing macro flash brackets, diffusers and reflectors. I also want to rig up a small portable clear super-mini aqaurium, to put a few stream rocks and things into, as well as bugs, and even small fish like sculpins. I can take this mini river to a local hotel room and use lights, or streamside with a light tent and reflectors if necessary. I want to capture natural looking shots of bugs and steam critters in their own environment. Someday I might make a big one for trout...lol.. About the magic arm, I have a clamp on one end and a ball head on the other with a Really Right Stuff qucik release. This is a great tool for holding a camera, for desktop macro photography, can also be clamped onto a tree branch, or even a bike or skateboard for low level motion shots. Also works nice for placing a flash. About the wireless release you mention, I wonder what brand you bought? I have the Nikon wireless remote, but it is IR and only works up to about 30' away and has to be direct line of sight. Very limiting and I plan on buying several Pocket Wizards this year. But I will most likely use the pocket wizards for placing serveral flash units and firing them wirelessly. I've found my Nikon IR unit to be less than 100% reliable and much prefer using a wired remote release. I bought a 12' release extension cord which is helpful but I'm really looking forward to having Pocket Wizards. Too bad all of this stuff costs so much money! That said, since I've been getting requests from people and businesses to buy my photos I oficially started a new business in the past couple of weeks. Registered with the L.A. Conty Clerk, DBA and separate bank account etc. I have fine parchment paper certificates of authenticity designed and printed, a custom embossing stamp, etc, and I'll be able to write off all of my 2007 camera gear purchases, take a loss, and help my other tax burdens. lol... I love photography!!! One of my favorite books is the first photography book I purchased after getting my DSLR, Close-Up & Macro A Photographers Guide, by Robert Thompson. This book is a must have for those serious about macro photography, even shows how to make the aquarium mentioned earlier as well as lighting it. I'm pulling the book off the shelf right now for another read. JH, I'm really looking forward to meeting you someday, hopefully not at an industry event, instead on steam would be much better. Either on your monster brownie stream or mine.... BTW... my steelhead face that made the cover of AA was not a macro shot, I used a 17-55 lens which focuses pretty close and works well on larger fish. Another option is to use a telephoto lens with or without an extension tube. I really like the way some of my fall brownie faces came out and I used a 300mm telephoto. I had to stand back 20' just to get the fish in the frame. Someday I hope to get into underwater fish photography using a waterproof housing. I look forward to a lifetime of fun and challenges with my photography. I don't seem to have any desire to make images of man made stuff except for flies, I've always loved nature and want to keep my camera focused on that. Graham

Hi jh, This year I plan on spending more time practicing macro photography, which is the reason why I invested in a DSLR in 2006. I really don't know anything at all about the lenses you mentioned, but the least expensive way to begin taking close up photos is to put an extension tube between your camera and lens. This allows you to place your lens closer to the subject and still be able to focus. The problem is a loss of light resulting in a need to use a tripod. I have 3 macro lenses, 60, 105 and 200mm and each has strenghts and weakness. The 60 is what I used for the rainbow trout faces and bug photos from earlier this month. It's a very lightweight lens, as is the 105, and both are easy to hand hold. I used the 105 for fice face shots last summer in the Adirondacks, but I had to hold small fish in my left hand, out as far as possible from my face, where the camera was, and still couldn't get more than the face in the shot. I realized that I needed a 60mm lens for fish face shots. The problem with the 60, and being able to place the fish so much closer to the lens is shadows on the subject, my shadow. Next time I'm on stream I'll bring the 60 and 105, and possibly the 200. The 60 and 105 lenses are perfect for hand held stream insect shots. The 200 is perfect for shooting insects and other small critters that would fly away if you get too close. I used the 200 for my dragonfly series where the real dragonfly was checking out my tyed flies. I want to do more indoor macro photography as well, to include fly tying, bugs, flowers, feathers, etc. I will likely use the 105 and 200 for this type of photography, and I will not hand hold the camera and will use a tripod or magic-arm table clamp system. To get the best results I will use the mirror-up function on my camera as well as a remote cable release. So, if I'm photographing a fly up close, I'll focus on the fly, likely use an f/18 aperture for decent depth of field, then I'll press the cable release which will lift the mirror inside my camera, then I wait a couple of seconds for any micro-vibrations to dampen away, then the remote button is pressed again, making the photograph. About camera settings, I would use spot metering, single frame instead of continuous shooting mode, manual focus for indoor and auto focus for hand held fish faces, mirror up for tripod shooting.... I guess I'll stop here, because there are so many variable involved. For fish faces and bugs on my finger I use coninuous 5 frames per second with auto focus, and blast off a dozen or so shots, and later choose the best ones. One key issue is having enough light to enable hand holding while retaining sharpness, and being outdoors on a sunny day makes this much easier. Graham

That looks like a Great time. I wish there were meetings like this around here. Graham

Hi terrome, I'm in complete awe of your realistic tying abilities, your Lucanus is fantastic!!! Your love of beetles shows in your skills and they are well represented. Cheers, Graham

I finally feel like it's the holiday season, my son is out of school for two weeks, and I hope to spend a few days tying as well as day trips to the local mountains to play in the snow. I think I've even finsihed my Christmas shopping. What a relief! Anyway, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and happy holidays for those who don't belive in Santa..lol.. Graham

Welcome to the FTF terrome, Wow, those are Great looking realistics, and fantastic coloring as well. Please feel free to post more photos, I'd love to see a closer view. I hope 2008 is a good year for realistcs, 2007 was a bit slow for me, but looking at the flies posted here recently, including yours is providing some serious inspiration. Graham

Great looking flies Ulf. Your fishables are so pretty that I'll never fish the ones you sent me, but I have no doubt you catch fish with them, lots of fish. Graham

Here's a couple of egret shots from the past week, as well as a photo of a hawk that flew over the lake, which was chased away by a loud krew of gulls. I took the smaller snowy egret shot on a local pier, sure surprised me when I saw it fly past me so closely. I had my 70-200 lens on the camera.

Fantastic photo Will, such a magnificent creature and I like the soft lighting. I would have come home very happy if I'd captured this image. Now I'm wondering how far I need to drive to find some pretty owls. Graham

Wow, what a perfect way to start your day, thanks for sharing. Graham

Hey Steve, Man, I just love the top image, what a great shot!!!! Graham

Wow, ice and tropical images, and they're both hot. Beautiful captures! Graham

Hey Tangler, welcome to the forum. I was admiring your website a few days ago, spectacular and beautiful images, and I'm happy to see you here. Hey Jay, I love your website! I'm just starting to work on mine, have lots to do. I think I'm even going to offer prints for sale since I'm surprised how many images I'm selling without doing any marketing. I'm kind of excited about a deal that went down this past week, sold an egret in flight photo to an Arab ad agency and the pic will be used for a nationwide ad capmaign for the country of Oman. It paid amazingly well considering all I did was e-mail a file. The part that makes me smile the most is that the image was taken the first day I went to photograph the birds at my local lake in summer of 06. Anyway, the pic will be printed on billboards and pamplets nationwide, and I was assured they would send me a photo of my photo on a billboard... I think a lot of people just post their pics into a free service like photo-bucket, but having your own website, indexed by search engines seems like the way to go for those serious about photography and potential sales. I'm sure I'll visit our members sites often, including Will Mine, John Bennet, Andrew Kumler, JKay Morr, Ernie, Stu, Tangler, etc. I'm wondering who else here has a website? Graham

Hey Mokai, your Hills Creek photo is absolutely gorgeous! Wow. Graham

Maybe the websites are just in hibernation mode until a later date? The photos are still there. http://www.hatchmasters.ca/Pictures.htm

I had fun fishing both last week... These are the bugs that were under the rocks.. But the hot pink Czech nymph and streamers worked just as well as the realistics, maybe even better. I really enjoyed fishing all of the various flies, including the realistic stonefly. I just like to have as much fun as possible when fly fishing, and trying to decieve trout with an assortment of stuff is fun for me... Graham