Daniel Kordan, a landscape and travel photographer from Russia, has recently shared an absolutely incredible set of images from his 2019 trip to Japan, where he managed to capture a sea of flickering fireflies in the bamboo forest of Kyushu Island.
These curious bugs are the most active from May to July during their mating season, where the males first create the flashes of light with the females generating responses. These exchanges create the “twinkling effect” that everyone thinks of when they hear about these little creatures, and during this time, creates an incredible continuous glow across the whole area.
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“Fireflies are very sensitive. They need clean water nearby, warm humid air (but not rain), and no lights, Not a single photo can show how beautiful it is—shimmering and blinking forest full of little stars.”
According to his Instagram post, Daniel used a 58 mm nikkor 1.4, 24-70 mm 2.8 + Nikon Z 7 to capture Each shot on an interval timer at 2.8, iso 4000, 30 s for a total of around 200-400 shots, 2-3 hours of recording. Processing together in free starstax software. As you can see, the end results were nothing short of breathtaking!
Have you ever been able to witness an event like this yourself? Have you captured any great images like this? Be sure to check out all of Daniel’s work, (links below), and share your images & stories in the comments below.
