I keep looking back on old photographs I have taken. I am always in a process of learning how to get better at this, and when I see photos from four years ago - especially my Australian and Alaskan shoots, I think to myself, "I wish I knew then what I know now."

The reality of course is this is a process in learning and if I knew then what I know now, it still wouldn't stop me from saying that, because now I would know even more!

Hope that makes some sense...

I was taking a break today sitting on the back deck and enjoying my yellow rose which I thought had died, but has come back nicely and has a couple of lovely flowers blooming on it. I noticed these metallic green and gold flies flitting about. Not more than about 4mm in length, but so spectacular in the way they glistened in the sunlight. And I thought to myself, "I can capture them up close with my 200MM lens in this light... not only that, but I can capture them in flight!"

I'm a dreamer, right? But dreams are what so many great inventions have been built from.

Now I know the limitations of my camera, so I realize with my 200MM I will not be able to autofocus on an object so small moving so quickly. This is where human skill has to take over from technological convenience. I also know my 200MM is not a very good macro lens so focus is of the utmost importance. Capturing light with the 200MM is also a challenge - you need more light to get the same results as you would need with a wide-angle. In addition, with such a tiny subject, aperture would have to be set high to get the proper depth of field, which would further reduce the light capture.

So I tried a few different settings, and tried my patience. What I found worked best was an ISO setting of 400, my shutter speed at 1/320th, F-stop set to 14 and when the sun didn't go behind some clouds, I had a chance!