Mosquitoes
After days of planning and setup, halfway through a six-hour round-trip drive, two hours into a planned four-hour shoot; at 10:13 PM the hiss of compressed air faded as my can of bug spray emptied. Eyes burning from a mixture of sweat and insect repellent, sandals and pants covered in mud and soaked with saltwater, shirt drenched in sweat, glasses fogged and a buzz of mosquitoes flying around my head, it was time to give it up. The salt marsh had won, I had enough but the critters, well, they were just getting started.
Hiking back to dry land and the car, the big question other than why do this was did I set up the cameras correctly, or was this just another learning exercise? At least from a technical perspective, I’d know in 12 hours once the files were downloaded.
With the hatchback opened maybe two minutes to pack cameras and tripods, dozens of mosquitoes and other flying things took up residence in the car for the three-hour drive home. Even though I rolled the windows down several times that night, the next day there were still a half dozen insects flying around inside the car.
My vision for this shoot was a day to night time-lapse, capturing the colors in the sky at sunset and ending with the milky way moving across a Florida salt marsh. But weather and bugs didn’t corporate. Got parts of it, even some flashes of distant lightning (see image above) but a line of showers developed and passed right overhead at sunset delaying the start of the time-lapse and of course, the mosquitoes ended it early.
Time-lapse (note to self, next time bring two cans of bug stray)
My notes for the time-lapse:
Nikon D850, 14-24 mm, manual focus, f/2.8 aperture priority, matrix metering, auto white balance
ISO sensitivity settings:
- ISO sensitivity = 64
- Auto ISO sensitivity control = ON
- Maximum sensitivity = 3200
- Minimum shutter speed = 13s
Interval timer shooting:
- Interval = 15s
- Intervalsxshots/interval = 900x1
- Exposure smoothing = ON
- Silent photography = ON
- Interval priority = ON
Viewfinder Eyepiece Shutter CLOSED
2 Cans of Bug Spray
For more of my Waters Edge images, click here.
