Some of Today's Insects

[Geoff F]

Started off in sunshine but by the time I reached the site (30 minutes) it was all cloud. Nearly went home but decided to wait it out and eventually that paid off with patch sun for the next few hours.

Some of my models were a bit skittish and I struggled to find suitable angles so the backgrounds could have been better. However, here are a few of the more interesting species which were first for the year. I've probably got some better shots of other species still to sort through. But these were my best of the day; when regarding the actual interesting species instead of perfect shots.

This little Baccha elongata was flitting around looking for a suitable leaf to lay eggs on the underside; and just would not stay still for a photo.



There were a couple of these Broad-bodied Chasers flying around me but I couldn't get close enough for a photo when they briefly landed. Eventually I managed to sneak up on this one amongst some tussock grass but I was still 6 ft away and I only managed a couple of shots before it was off.



It is rather early to find a couple of Fleabane Tortoise Beetles in adult colours. They were hiding amongst the foliage so, once again, it was difficult to get a suitable angle before they scurried off deeper into the undergrowth.

[flashback]

Geoff, purely from a compositional point of view, #1 is the best, since a side view always seems more interesting/personal.
The other two are equally good from a technical point of view but I have a hard time taking my eyes off of #2.

The colors, texture, shading is just amazing. This dragonfly looks mechanical and metalized, in a most spectacular good way. The only suggestion I have for #2 is to see if you can remove that dried leaf (?) below and to the right of the dragon.

Seriously, I keep going back to lightbox to view #2, it's a bit addicting. Great shots.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Geoff, very nice shots I like the composition in #1, the details in the wings in #2 are superb. I agree with Jack about the dead leaf.

[terrib]

I'm always amazed at your shots and your knowledge of insects. Glad the light came back for you!

[Brownbear]

Me, too! And it is always a pleasure to view your insect posts and read your threads. I like that you are posting them individually to see, even though I don't always comment.

I adore the 1st image for its beauty and the background - however the 2nd image is mesmerizing for the beautiful detail.

[John 2]

Geoff absolutely lovely shots. Pin sharp and good angles. I have to agree with what's been said about the added info as well.

[ajohnw]

I like 2 the most.

I have tried various telephoto setups on m 4/3 but so far haven't managed to get any to work well enough. I'm curious what lens you use and what you have fitted to it?

John
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[IzzieK]

Back to insectography, Geoff? You and Grahame had an agreement to go back to it? Or did you just happen to think alike this week?

I'd like to know the answer to John's question too, Geoff...

Anywhoo...I imagined otherwise than dead leaf in #2...I thought the bug was laying eggs. How ignoramus can I be?! I do like #1. It is colourful to the hilt.

[Stagecoach]

Those have to be some of the best wings I have seen on a dragonfly in some time Geoff. Just about all the ones I have managed to get in the past here seem to have bits missing.

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the comments.

With real life insect photography it is all a matter of luck regarding suitable angles and backgrounds. Sometimes you get a chance to move around but too often you only get one quick shot.

During the summer I shoot a lot of insects, chiefly for identification purposes and the records go to various organisations which collate sightings from around the country. Somewhere around 150 keepable shots per day is average. And after identification has been made, a very small number of photos are retained in my files for future reference. Instead of creating a collection of dead specimens.

This dragonfly was shot at a rather low angle because it was so nervous. I did wonder about cloning out that bit of dried leaf but the rest of the leaf is underneath the insect on the other side of the stem and I thought it would look odd with the lower bit missing. But when I get more time I may have a go at it.

John. With regard to lenses. I have just upgraded my Sigma 180 macro lens to the new version. This one has stabilisation and I have found that it is just about possible to shoot hand held; with just the centre autofocus point. But I nearly always shoot with manual focus on a tripod. Even with F14 or F16 the depth of sharp focus is very small and it is so easy to wobble off focus when hand holding. Even the slightest breeze can cause problems with leaf quiver.

I have found that a tripod with some form of quick grip ball head makes all the difference for these quick shots.

Often, probably mostly, I add a 1.4x converter to my lens for the smaller and nervous subjects so I can keep a foot or more away from them.

When I started with macro photography I used a 70-300 lens which had a sort of macro function which in reality meant over 3 ft at 300 mm but I found that adding an extension tube certainly helped. A 25 mm tube enabled me to get almost 1 ft closer. But tubes are less effective when used on a 'proper macro lens' although they can be useful at times.

Ps. The Baccha has a wing length of around 8 mm which coupled with its reluctance to pose for a photo means that quick focusing is necessary. While auto focusing can occasionally play a part, I find that it often focuses on the wrong end of an insect or the leaf behind etc. So manual focusing usually gets more keepers.

[Geoff F]

Sometimes, quite often in fact, it is impossible to get the ideal angle for an insect which is at best 'doing its own thing' and at worst, attempting to escape from your view.

But getting the 'correct' angle for identification is often more important to me than an aesthetically pleasing shot. For example, from today, an odd cranefly was lurking deep within a bramble patch. I just took a couple of quick shots but managed to get the wing veins, which was the important bit for me.



From these wing veins I have been able to key out the fly to a Clyindrotoma species. Which is new to me; but so far, I have been unable to discover anything more about this family.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[FrankMi]

Thank you for the background Geoff! Both interesting and informative. It really adds to the magnificent images you consistently post.

[ajohnw]

Thanks for the info Geoff. I've noticed that AF focuses on things rather than slightly into them what ever camera I have used. I see signs of it in the shots. Not just macro either. I suspect I notice as I grew up with manual focus so was taught to focus slightly into things.

I'm finding that the Olympus m 4/3 60mm macro lens is usable if I can get close enough. I suspect that is mainly because the camera knows it's a macro lens and limits the focus to macro lengths which from memory is up to 900mm so contrast AF is quick and accurate. If I use the Sigma 100mm on m 4/3 via an adapter the focusing struggles at higher magnification ratios probably because it's intended for contrast AF. If it misses it's likely to cycle all the way through the entire focus range. I feel Olympus have improved on what other macro lenses do in this respect by having a switch that allows focus from 1:1 to 900mm or 900mm - infinity. I need to check one or two things before I am sure it's actually reaching 1:1. It happened once but I wrecked the shot. so not entirely clear what it did.

The 75-300mm m 4/3 Olympus lens will fill the frame with something around 30-40 mm across at 300mm but either the optical quality isn't too good at that distance or I'm failing to keep the subject in focus when I shoot.. I have tried extension tubes on it briefly without success but really need to try that again to be sure.

Flash - I am going to see if I can modify one of the clip on ones that come with the camera so that it can be mounted on a bracket. I'm sure these have enough power for many situations. Probably up to maybe 2m but definitely over 1m from trying macro with a Pen camera. On that one I had to set a 7x view and focused by moving the camera. Hard to be sure where the subject is in the frame and DOF problems might have been down to camera movement when I took the shot.

I did buy a lightweight tripod recentlty but intend to continue trying hand held for a while yet. I'm wondering if the camera wont shoot unless in focus option might help next. It may just do that on camera to subject distance and I'm fairly happy that the IS can cope with the actual shot.

John
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[Geoff F]

The 75-300mm m 4/3 Olympus lens will fill the frame with something around 30-40 mm across at 300mm but either the optical quality isn't too good at that distance or I'm failing to keep the subject in focus when I shoot.. I have tried extension tubes on it briefly without success but really need to try that again to be sure.

I did buy a lightweight tripod recentlty but intend to continue trying hand held for a while yet. I'm wondering if the camera wont shoot unless in focus option might help next. It may just do that on camera to subject distance and I'm fairly happy that the IS can cope with the actual shot.

John
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When I started macro with my 70-300 lens, John, I quickly gave up on hand held shooting. I never had much success with it. A lens of that size is very difficult to hold absolutely steady without even a few mm on wobble. It works OK for landscapes etc providing you have sufficient shutter speed but a cheap tripod made all the difference to me. Although now, I use a nice carbon fibre Manfrotto with a really steady ball head.

[ajohnw]

I've been wondering about buying a Gitzo as they really do make use of carbon fibre but due to that they are more fragile than some. The lightweight one I bought is a Hahnel. They are a little like the Japanese light weight tripods whose name I can't remember. Decent high tensile alloy and reasonable tube diameters. The ball head on it seems to be fairly good as well. It's weight limit is 3kg but I wouldn't anticipate putting 5 on it to be a problem especially as the extending centre column isn't a good idea.

I'm wondering if the 300mm problem is down to not being able to see if the subject is actually in focus when using mirror less. I can set continuous but unfortunately that sets track as well on an E-M5 which means the camera may suddenly decide to focus on what ever the insect is on and just refuse to go back to it.

As I have bought some 4/3 lenses and wanted to check them on the correct type of camera I also bought a used E-620 4/3 camera. Sort of on lone as I can sell it later. With that I have a viewfinder so can see if things are in focus. Out of curiosity I tried a flower macro on it. Pleased with the results. Thought of calling it life springs up after death or some such crap but no one would believe a yellow bud produces and orange flower. I took 3 shots all perfectly in focus.



Also playing with correcting dim light type colouration which flash will fix.I feel it's a bit gaudy now. That's a bit over 3 times life size.

This makes me wonder if mirrorless will ever catch up with a viewfinder for this sort of thing. On the other hand no problems with the olympus 60mm m 4/3 lens. It could be just phase focusing on the E-620 that does the trick with the 100mm lens. I'm beginning to get an urge to buy an E-M1 to get it but doubt if it will be as good as the E-620 which was Olympus's basic camera. Not so good IS or focusing as other models. An extremely well thought out camera though.

Have to try a mono pod as well but these don't usually help hold accurate distances to the subject.

John
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[Geoff F]

Yes, John, I often have to tip my tripod onto two legs to get the angle I require, particularly when taking quick shots through a 'hole' in the undergrowth, but when I tip it on to just one leg, like a monopod, my keepers rate drops considerably.

That flower certainly proves that good quality is achievable with your equipment.

When photographing flowers, and often insects as well, I do a custom WB with a proper grey card before shooting. Although I shoot Raw which makes WB editing much easier, a correct WB starting point does help when attempting to decide exactly what the flower colour was at the time of shooting.

Incidentally, when photographing larger flowers I usually shoot with my Tamron 24-70 lens because it has a better depth of focus than a big macro lens; and the minimum focusing distance is 8 ins which is fine for flowers.

ps. When I recently purchased a pocket sized camera I went for a Fuji X20 because it still had a proper viewfinder; and was able to shoot in Raw. It does seem to have good macro capabilities but you need to get really close so not good for insects.

[ajohnw]

It was shot in pure northern light Geoff. In photo's i find that tends to make things look a little flat. We live in a tall house that has a north facing garden and the flower is well in it's shadow. On some shot's I find I can get a more sunny look via pp. The colour balance is about right. When I have shot in similar situations with flash I find it tends to give shots a more sunny look. I generally shoot raw plus jpg and process the jpg if there is sufficient info in it. It makes very little difference working from raw in ,lots of cases. Much depends on the tonal range in the shot. This one fits in jpg space easily with just a bit of blue clipping in the very dark blacks that wouldn't be noticed even if it was bought in some how. All the camera does is apply an S curve just as I would have to do from raw so I just let it get on with it. I can adjust the curve as I'm taking the shot or use other preset ones as well.*

The E-620 is about the same size as a Canon 100D but doesn't have a cut off end.. My compact is a Pen E-P3. Sadly they haven't built the viewfinder in it and the add on sticks out of the top. It will still fit in a decent jaket pocket with the 14-42mm on retracted. I wont knock any of these ranges of camera as they have a lot to offer over a dslr. Really this thread high lights the difficulties. The E-M1 cures one of them - it has continuous AF without tracking plus more control of the area used. It also has phase type AF but the indications are that this isn't as good as the "real" thing in some respects - on any camera that uses it. The biggest problem really is that they decided to offer a 60mm macro lens and nothing longer - yet.

* Being basically a Canon man I can really understand why processing from raw is preferred by many. Then there is the Nikon always over exposes aspect. Times change on both makes and they too improve their jpg engines as times go by. I suspect many on here don't really know how capable their camera really is in that respect. Some makes however are better than others. What Pen's can do came as a bit of a surprise to me.

john
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