Post your insects

This is a UK site, Wendy, but there is a lot of information about bees in general there.

http://www.bwars.com/index.htm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim B.

Hi Frankie,

The dragonfly with the white and black wings is a "Widow Skimmer".

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Thank you Jim!

Any clue about this one? Not sure I've ever seen one like this before...

http://i54.tinypic.com/r938g3.jpg

Thanks for your help!
frankie

Frankie,

It's a Brown Spotted Yellow Wing.I've not seen these here,but I am sure they're around.The pond I frequent has mostly Widow Skimmers and Red Skimmers.

I've had the chance to photograph this Katydid for the past month.Hoping it stays around until it becomes an adult.These shots are 6 days apart.It's changing rapidly now.Notice the change in body shape and the size of the wings.

http://phoenix54.smugmug.com/MACRO/W.../IMG8552-L.jpg

http://phoenix54.smugmug.com/MACRO/W.../IMG8924-L.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim B.

Frankie,

It's a Brown Spotted Yellow Wing.I've not seen these here,but I am sure they're around.The pond I frequent has mostly Widow Skimmers and Red Skimmers.

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Thanks again, Jim! I had never seen one before and then I see another one today in NC.
frankie

Does this count?

http://i51.tinypic.com/1ze9pqs.jpg

Made my first serious attempt at shooting insects yesterday. I got a couple I thought worth sharing. C&C welcome.

Honeybee at the water fountain:
http://snarkbyte.smugmug.com/Nature/...724-006-XL.jpg

Dragonfly, unknown species. The depth of field isn't quite large enough here, but I like the shot, anyway.
http://snarkbyte.smugmug.com/Nature/...724-012-XL.jpg

Another shot of the dragonfly. DOF is better here, but still not quite sharp on the wingtips. I like the angle of the above shot better.
http://snarkbyte.smugmug.com/Nature/...724-016-XL.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6136/...d80683c1_z.jpg
A spider feeding on a bumblebee (bombus lapidarius I think)

Dragonflies

http://i51.tinypic.com/nbyxs0.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/mj7g53.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/mvloc7.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letrow

A spider feeding on a bumblebee (bombus lapidarius I think)

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Awesome shot, Peter!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ktuli

Awesome shot, Peter!

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Thank you. My biggest problem was getting the right angle without disturbing the spider. He/she was tiny and had his/her 'place' between three lavender stems. Most angles had too much obstruction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim B.

I've had the chance to photograph this Katydid for the past month.Hoping it stays around until it becomes an adult.These shots are 6 days apart.It's changing rapidly now.Notice the change in body shape and the size of the wings.

http://phoenix54.smugmug.com/MACRO/W.../IMG8552-L.jpg

http://phoenix54.smugmug.com/MACRO/W.../IMG8924-L.jpg

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Great detail and colours. Weird looking from this close.

A couple butterflies from this weekend trip to Gainesville.Can't wait when the temp cools as these are very active insects in this heat.Feel free to C&C these photo's...Ron

http://i53.tinypic.com/5dvznp.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/20a6tjc.jpg

Here's a shot of the mantis I played peek-a-boo with that shows off a bit more of his arsenal....

http://gallery.ktuli.com/main.php?g2...serialNumber=2

- Bill

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ktuli

Here's a shot of the mantis I played peek-a-boo with that shows off a bit more of his arsenal....

http://gallery.ktuli.com/main.php?g2...serialNumber=2

- Bill

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Beautiful shot. We don't have them where I live and the shot makes me wonder...how big are these little beasties?

One of my attempts at a flying insect (bumblebee in this case). I am not happy about the sharpness, but I liked the composition of this, as it looks like the bee is flying toward its target. Focus just isn't fast enough to capture this it seems:(

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6148/...62d8a899_z.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letrow

Beautiful shot. We don't have them where I live and the shot makes me wonder...how big are these little beasties?

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Peter,

This particular one was still a juvenile and only about 3.5-4 inches long. Adults can be about 6-8" long.

They are impressive hunters. They are aware of everything around them, can move at undetectable slow speeds or lighting fast speeds, and those jaws slice right through the exoskeleton of other insects like a hot knife through butter.

I once had a hanful of babies that a customer gave to me when I owned my pet store. They tore through crickets like crazy and some days I swear you could watch them grow! Unfortunately, at the time I didn't own a flash, so wasn't able to get any good shots of the babies. :(

- Bill

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ktuli

Peter,

This particular one was still a juvenile and only about 3.5-4 inches long. Adults can be about 6-8" long.

They are impressive hunters. They are aware of everything around them, can move at undetectable slow speeds or lighting fast speeds, and those jaws slice right through the exoskeleton of other insects like a hot knife through butter.

I once had a hanful of babies that a customer gave to me when I owned my pet store. They tore through crickets like crazy and some days I swear you could watch them grow! Unfortunately, at the time I didn't own a flash, so wasn't able to get any good shots of the babies. :(

- Bill

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That is quite big actually, even the baby is huge if I compare it to the insects we have in Holland. Sounds like they could hunt mouses as well. Not sure whether that happens, but they seem big enough:eek:

Peter, what I do in cases like your bee photo is to run a Blur Tool lightly around the noisy background. This will make the bee appear a lot sharper. And possibly a little more selective sharpening applied to just the bee.

But photographing bees is extremely difficult. Even when they are on the ground they usually move faster than I can focus.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

Peter, what I do in cases like your bee photo is to run a Blur Tool lightly around the noisy background. This will make the bee appear a lot sharper. And possibly a little more selective sharpening applied to just the bee.

But photographing bees is extremely difficult. Even when they are on the ground they usually move faster than I can focus.

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I was wondering about the shutter speed for this as well. It is ok to get blur in the wings (they are moving after all;)), but what kind of shutter speed would you need to actually freeze this movement?