Lightning Bugs

Last night I was wandering about in the Bass River State Forest, listening for calling amphibians as part of CAMP. And I heard carpenter frogs, fowlers toads, pine barrens tree frogs, and green frogs making quite a racket.

I also saw a phenomenal lightning bug display. Being new moon and being in the forest made it quite dark (quite dark for New Jersey anyway). It looked like a Christmas display with blinking lights everywhere, extending far out of my field of view in both direcitons. As I watched in awe I wondered how I might possibly photograph this display. Alas, I had with me but a point and shoot camera, which was not up to the task.

For those keeping score at home, I participated in grassland bird surveys in the morning, as decribed in my previous post, waking at 4:00 AM. And then the calling amphibian survey at night, getting home after midnight. So maybe sleep depravation had something to do with what I saw. And my inability to photograph it.

(Click to Bigafy)

Flash forward to this evening. I was visiting my sister Jeanine for dinner, as my older sister Amalie and her two kids were in town from Spokane. Dad was visiting as well.

They are on their way to Spain, three days in Barcelona, and then on a cruise to Italy. Except for my niece that is. She is staying with Jeanine and family because, and I quote, "I'm not really interested in old buildings and would probably just ruin the trip for everybody else." (My brother in law Steve will meet them en-route in n London.)

My nephew is into old buildings and can't wait to see the Coliseum in Rome and the Cathedral in Barcelona.

As we were sitting on the porch after dinner the lightning bugs came out. And there were hundreds of them. My brother in law Dano noted that he had never seen so many there. And they had participated in a project Firefly Watch to track them last year.

(Click to Bigafy)

I had my DSLR with me and decided to try again. As I was setting up I remarked, "I'm gonna try to photograph the lightning bugs. I do not expect to be successful." To which my sister Amalie retorted, "Whoa, don't be setting the bar too high now."

I didn't have my whole kit with me, and resorted to using a 100 mm macro lens, as it was the fastest lens, at f/2.8, I had with me. (I really could have used my 50 mm f/1.4.) I shot 10 second exposures at ISO 3200 at f/2.8. I got a lot of dark frames. But I also got the two shown here.

Unfortunately they do not begin to capture the spectacle we witnessed. And I'm still not sure how to best go about photographing these creatures. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.