Green Sparks (Original Photography)

Howdy,

After a brutal winter and a colder-than-usual spring, the fireflies are back! Winters as cold as this last one was can reduce the number of fireflies, but we have also had a wet spring. That means those that did hatch had an abundance of food. The cool weather delayed them about two weeks, but they've returned at last!

Tripod and insect-repellent in hand, I headed out to try and photograph them. The mosquitos are ravenous and bug spray doesn't do much to fend them off, but it was worth it.

^{Blurry Blinkies (multi-shot composite)}

This first image shows just how difficult it can be to get them in focus, especially with vision problems. They don't blink long enough to use live view (screen on the back of the camera) to focus and I can't see well enough to manually focus through the view finder. Autofocus doesn't work at all in this low of light, so I ended up using the distance meter on the top of the lens to guess the focus.

... and eventually nailed it!

^{Stars Above, Stars Below}

The previous photo is a single eight-second exposure, which gives you an idea of how many were blinking at any given time. There are actually significantly moer blinking, but they're obscured by foliage.

The fireflies in this area have a few different light patterns. Most of the time, they will emit multiple quick flashes but, sometimes, they will glow for up to three seconds. With long exposure photos, these seconds-long illuminations show up as green lines.

This last one was really pushing the abilities of my old Canon 7D. Hopefully, I'll find work sooner rather than later so that I can afford to upgrade. The 7D is decade-old tech and doesn't do well with low light.

These photos were all taken next to a little cemetery in the middle of nowhere that, for whatever reason, I tend to wind up at whenever I'm looking for barns or dark places for photos. It is located less than a quarter-mile from where I took the firefly photos. This photo was shot a few nights earlier, though.

^{Strange Skyline}

Thank you for taking a look! If you enjoy my work, please click the upvote button. Comments are also greatly appreciated.