Post your insects

[Geoff F]

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

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

[Frankie]

Hi Frankie,

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

Thank you Jim!

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



Thanks for your help!
frankie

[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.

[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.

[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.

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

[Kris V]

Does this count?

[Snarkbyte]

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:


Dragonfly, unknown species. The depth of field isn't quite large enough here, but I like the shot, anyway.


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.

[Letrow]

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

[epmi314]

Dragonflies

[ktuli]

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

Awesome shot, Peter!

[Letrow]

Awesome shot, Peter!

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.

[Letrow]

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.

Great detail and colours. Weird looking from this close.

[Rasbury]

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

[ktuli]

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



- Bill

[Letrow]

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



- Bill

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

[Letrow]

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

[ktuli]

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

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

[Letrow]

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

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

[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.

[Letrow]

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.

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?