CalevPhoto

Fun with the new 180L + MT-24EX and stink bugs

Green stink bugs are one of my favorite subjects due to their bright green color.  For more information about stink bugs, see the previous blog I wrote about them.  In particular I often enjoy photographing them against the strong red of the Japanese maple bushes in our front yard, which works out well because that is where I usually find them.

The leaf in this shot is from me.  In a previous shot some commented that the red of the Japanese maple was too strong against the green of the stink bug.  Also, in this case the stink bug wasn’t in a very good spot to photograph so I used the leaf to move it.  One thing I have noticed is that the MT-24EX on the 180L can tend to be a bit too strong.  In this case the front of the stink bug is a bit too strongly lit.  Continue on for a comparison with a similar shot on the MP-E 65 and more stink bug experiments.

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My first firefly! Well, sort of…

We’ve finally had some good weather over here, so I took the opportunity to photograph the ponds next to my building.  While rummaging in some leaves, I found a very interesting beetle.  It didn’t seem like it wanted to do much of anything so it was more than happy to let me take some pictures of it – including letting me place it in some more photographic areas and in general annoy it.

After spending time researching this in my insect books, I found that this is a Ellychnia corrusca, or Winter Firefly.  Wow!  A firefly!  I was instantly excited.  Unfortunately this particular firefly cannot emit light in the adult stage – just when it is a larva.

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An invasion of midges

As many of you who watch the news know, things have been a bit cold here recently. This has resulted in it being difficult to find interesting bugs to photograph. During the spring and summer, it sometimes seems like I am limited only by time and flash card memory. During this time of year, I am lucky to get a few half decent shots.

However, there are insects to be found at this time of year. Woodlice are as common as ever and centipedes and spiders are also not difficult to find. Recently I have also noticed an increase in springtails that will be the subject of a blog in the near future. So far there are no ants or much in winged insects but I suspect that will change towards the end of February. However, I have seen a marked increase in the number of midges.

One of the nice things about macro photography is, until recently, I had no true idea what a midge is. From the Wikipedia article the term “midge” is a rather generic term that refers to a number of relatively unrelated families of insects. According to Insects Their Natural History and Diversity, midge “is a kind of handy term to refer to the little flies that a happy motorcyclist gets to scrape off his teeth after a summer night’s ride”. While a number of them look like mosquitoes, they lack the long needle that mosquitoes use to puncture the flesh to draw blood. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the midges I have come across are a non-biting variety and are quite harmless. In other parts of the world the midges do bite and there are even theories that parts of Scotland are not strongly populated due to the presence of the midge.

It seems that the local midges here love the barn in my backyard because whenever I look I can find a number of them resting on the outside of it, and even more caught in the spider webs hanging from the roof. The majority of the midges hanging on the barn are very easy to photograph. They don’t mind the lens getting so close and I even lightly poked one to make sure it wasn’t dead. Perhaps they are in a breeding mode or resting during the day – I’m not quite sure why they hang on the side of the barn for hours on end.

For those of you wondering what a midge (at least here) looks like, the following is a shot.

In particular I get a kick out of the “hairdo” on top of their heads. The following is a closer shot of “the do”.

According to one of my insect books, this signifies that the midge is a male. If this is true, then the logical consequence is this image is a female

Some midges are considered to be garden pests. Perhaps these ones are as well. I have noticed a number of pieces of leaves missing on some of my plants, but so far it has been difficult to determine what has been eating them. Besides, due to my photography habits I do not allow anyone to spray pesticides in the yard. Sometimes my wife gets a bit upset about this. I offered to purchase a bunch of praying mantids to help keep the insects down but she knows my true aspirations are to get some good mantid shots. J

Whatever they are doing, they are so impartial to their surroundings that they let me get close enough to them to get shots like this.

After some research, I found that this midge, as with many others, belongs to the family Chironomidae. This is a huge family with 2,000 members just in North America and are very common during the winter. So, the next time I hear the word “midge” I will be able to put a picture to the word!