06-02-10 – Macro Bugs

Fair enough. Oddly, though, back in the day when I only had a PAS camera, I had a butterfly that had the misfortune of landing his body smack-dab in the middle of my car antenna while on the way to work. I snapped a couple pictures (none of which are good, really; it was a 4 mpxl cam), but I always thought it was a unique shot, both for me, and the butterfly. I still have them, and it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this contest, until I saw the quality was lacking even moreso than my usual submissions. I’d never imagine a butterfly could be so cleanly, yet not completely, split in two.

Here’s the best one:

Okay, new question. While trying to capture a live ga-nat, I noticed a little web-thingy on my window screen ( I aluded to it earlier). Here’s the deal: it’s some kind of cocoon. It’s inhabitant is no longer in residence. The cocoon is very much shaped like and egg, with the top neatly sawed open at the top, and meshed with fine fibers to my window screen. Or it was, at least, and I took pictures, of course.

Naturally (geek, kid at heart, boy; call it what you will), I attempted to take it off the screen for a better look. And I managed to do so. So now I have these few window pics, and some microscopic macros showing the fibers that make up this as-it-turns-out incredibly durable 2.5 x 4 mm cocoon sac, complete with lid, a shot of the interior (DOF totally lacking; it’s a joke in a 100x power scope; I focused on the junk that was left on the bottom), various other pictures (I took 25.)

I wish to use one of them. Whatever creeped and crawled has done and Elvis and left the building.

Is the subject matter okay? I don’t know what shot I’ll use, but I’d like to use the best one I can manage from what I took.

And for the guy in Scottsdale (carderoc? I forget); I saved the little eggshell and lid in a little baggie. If you have a REAL macro and what to see what you can do with it; you’re welcome to it.

Not the shot I would use, but this is what I’m talking about:

New theme suggestion: Macro bug abodes.

*sigh* I’ll save them for some future contest; sooner or later, there will be one that fits the images. Well, it’s my day off, I’ll have to go searching under some rocks for real live critters I guess. I was going to ask about little critters I know are lurking in the pool–gone-green at the house for which I’m dog sitting, but those aren’t insects either.

Can I just say that shooting Macro on a living object with the powers of flight has proved to be extremely difficult? The only thing that makes it at all rewarding is the gold one pans after a lot of dross.

Also, the money that I am going to spend this month on true macro lens after the contest, well, my non-existent children are going to go hungry because of that!

It took me nearly an hour and untold shots to get the one I wanted…

Ain’t digital grand! I am glad I learned to shoot on film first, for the discipline of cost that it taught, but I LOVE being able to shoot a hundred shots to get ten good ones.

Ain’t digital grand! I am glad I learned to shoot on film first, for the discipline of cost that it taught, but I LOVE being able to shoot a hundred shots to get ten good ones.

Totally. I find myself experimenting a lot more to get just the shot I want, too, because I can. That’s probably my favorite part of going digital.

FWIW, that’s about what I do too. I was taking pictures of a pillbug yesterday, for example, and I set the lens to the minimum focal length and moved around until the thing was in focus. Or, more frequently, got ahead of it and waited. Those little buggers are *fast* when they’re on a mission…

Also, pillbugs on concrete can be pretty uninteresting, because most of my shots ended up more suitable for kestrana‘s B&W&G contest than this one :/