CalevPhoto

Why aren’t you bugging me?

OK, OK, so it’s been awhile since I have posted a decent old fashioned bug shot.  The reality is between being extremely busy and having rather lousy weather here I haven’t taken too many bug shots lately.  I hope to change this soon.  Last night we had a ton of midges get into the house during a party – as if they were wondering where the heck I was.

This shot was taken a few months ago by the ponds outside my office.  I spent some time photographing one stink bug and when I found another on a different leaf – I figured – why not?

They stayed together for about thirty seconds – but this was long enough to get a decent shot.  They didn’t seem too offended by one another – but soon went their separate ways.

Stink bugs are one of my favorite insects to photograph as they are so colorful.

Aphids in the wild

During the summer, pretty much whenever I want to find aphids I can find them.  They are always on our rose bushes and I use no insecticides to get rid of them.  When I find a ladybug in the yard, I move it to the rose bushes to trim the aphids a bit – though I haven’t found a ladybug yet this year.  It is tempting to buy them in the store but I have read that these are not native ladybugs and will therefore just fly away and provide little benefit to the garden.

Still, it was a welcome sight to find some aphids in the wild this weekend while shooting near some ponds that are next to the building where I work.

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Who said aphids can’t be funny?

I must admit that among the more hilarious pictures in the world, insects are rarely mentioned.  However, once in awhile I do find a rather amusing shot and more often than not it occurs with aphids.  I do not believe that aphids consider themselves to be amusing, but once in awhile I catch an aphid in a pose that does look a bit strange.

Although aphids stay rather still for most shots, they are not one of the easier insects to photograph.  For one, they are extremely small and often require a magnification of 5x for a good shot.  This means that the viewfinder is extremely dark and the lens is shaky.  The also do move, so tracking can be slightly tricky at times.

Here is an aphid family portrait.

Amazingly, an adult ladybug can eat up to sixty of these a day!  I am currently looking for some lady bugs, as Nelya prefers that the aphids stay away from her roses, but I won’t let her use insecticides on them.

While they certainly aren’t a beneficial insect, they do provide some amusement!

Time for some bees

During the recent warm weather, I figured it would be nice to get out there and take some bee shots.  This also gave me a chance to work with my 180mm macro, which has lately been ignored in favor of the MP-E 65.  While the MP-E 65 is an amazing lens, for things like bees the 180L is far more appropriate.

I had hoped to catch a bee in flight, but alas the only shots I got were too OOF.  I could have probably made my life easier by not trying to get the shot at 1:1, but then it wouldn’t have looked as interesting!  From past experience, I have found it’s better to try to take an amazing shot and fail than to take several mediocre shots.

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The release of the queens

Several weekends ago, my wife asked me to weed in our backyard.  I obliged, but on my way to get some equipment, I noticed something very unusual in the backyard.  The carpenter ant colony was releasing their queens and males.

First, I am not a myrmecologist and my knowledge of ants and carpenter ants comes from reading several books and observing them in my backyard.  Therefore, some of the information below may be incorrect.  If you know some of it to be false, please let me know and I will gladly correct it.

To be honest, I’m not sure if all of them were queens, all were males, or if there was a mix, but I suspect the latter.  Their clearly were smaller winged ants and larger ones.  I watched and photographed the phenomenon for a good hour.  While in my opinion none of the shots are great on their own, altogether the tell a very interesting story.

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Tips for focusing in macro

One of the single biggest problems new macro photographers have is the issue of focusing.  This is particularly evident in insect shots, where most of them are a bit out of focus.  In this post, I will provide some tips for focusing.

First, if you are using autofocus at all when shooting macro, turn it off.  In macro, when you change the focus using the focus ring, you are actually changing the magnification.  Generally, you care what the magnification is on a given shot. The camera, on the other hand, has no idea. Therefore, do not let the camera do this for you.  Set the magnification yourself (most macro lenses have it printed on the barrel) and focus by moving towards and away from the subject.

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Scorpions in the Pacific Northwest!

This weekend, we were invited over to a barbecue at some of our friends house.  I had my camera along, as I had earlier photographed one of my wife’s listings, and their property was a bit wooded.  Of course, I could not resist taking out my camera to see what I could find.

While waiting near a fern where I had noticed some fly activity, a small bug caught my eye.  I decided to photograph it to see what it was and was quite surprised with the result.

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A successful day at the ponds

After going almost a month without taking any macro shots, it was time to gather up my MP-E 65 and MT-24EX and see what I could find.  The location was the ponds by my building at work, to which I organize a group of us to meet every week.

It took me awhile to find anything truly interesting.  I dug around in the soil for a bit but gave up on that as I was more in the mood of catching something on a leaf.  While there are quite a few interesting creatures that live in the soil, due to the background it can be difficult to get the artistic edge in shots.

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A different rove beetle?

Some time ago I blogged about a rove beetle that I found in my backyard.  It was very peculiar in that it raised its tail like a scorpion and confronted me as I tried to take its picture.  Looking at the date, I blogged about this beetle in January of last year.

One of the interesting things about keeping a blog is it has caused me to ask questions that I normally would not ask.  The following came up with another similar specimen that I found over the weekend.

After looking at these pictures, I had the following questions.

1. Why did I find this beetle just now?  They are not common during other parts of the year.  Are they common during just a small part of the year?
2. This specimen looks a bit different than the other one.  It is slightly reddish while the other one is more pitch black.
3. It also did not raise its tail as a threat, but instead ran away quickly.  There were also several of them instead of just a single one as I found before.  It certainly seemed more docile than the other one.

I’m not sure if I have a perfect answer for these questions, but I did a little bit of research and have some ideas.

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Sometimes the subjects come to you

The day was done and I was happy with the shots I had gotten.  We had walked at Twin Falls State Park and I had taken some decent shots that day, including my first silverfish.  As I was chatting about how to find interesting insects, I glanced at my tripod that was sitting on the ground.  There was something interesting climbing on it.  I could not identify the insect, but quickly got some shots of it as it explored this strange thing that had invaded its forest.

The patterns on its wings in particular were very interesting.I wish now that I had tried to get a closer shot of them, but this particular critter was not going to sit still.  Getting good shots of it was a challenge.  However, after consulting my literature at home I am now fairly certain of what this is. Continue Reading…