My son has gathered a pile of objects that he wants me to photograph. The pile ranges from bottle caps, candy, miniture soldiers ....... to a Ladybug. He put the little bug in the freezer so it would be still for the shot. (I personally think that moving and this Ladybug will never be used in the same sentence again) At least her image lives on.

[Snowcat]

Looks a little dark for me...
But perfectly sharp! What lens was used for this shot?

[spyglass]

Looks a little dark for me...
But perfectly sharp! What lens was used for this shot?

I used my trusty old manual Pentax 50mm f4-f32 Macro Lens and a lot of extension. The shot is a bit darker than I generally run with (easy to alter in photoshop). It looked ok on my home monitor which is calibrated to match my "prints". When I looked at the photo 5today on my work computer (old CRT monitor) it looks very dark. It is too bad that the monitors, cameras, and prints shops do not have a universal standard of reference. I remember reading an article on calibration and they reduced the concept to "correct to suit the intended medium". So I snapped of several test shots (colour series, contrast series, etc) had them all printed. I found the best print in every instance. Then I brought the shot up on my camera's display and adjusted it to match the photo. Then I brought the photo up on my monitor screen, and adjusted it to match the photo. This has worked very well for me. But the results differ if I switch to another photo printing outfit (for example, Costco & London drugs are completely different from each other, and the local shop that I use - because the quality is very high is different again).

[little laker]

It is an interesting picture.

Although I do agree that it's a little too dark it looks like the sides of the wings were about to blow out

Personally I'd crop to just around the eyes, and mouth.

It's looking like you were using a ISO 800 or higher. I would have used ISO 200 or lower

[jmc7104]

Really close up and personal Lady-Bugs ok but spiders and bees I like to be a little farther away.

[spyglass]

It is an interesting picture.

Although I do agree that it's a little too dark it looks like the sides of the wings were about to blow out

Personally I'd crop to just around the eyes, and mouth.

It's looking like you were using a ISO 800 or higher. I would have used ISO 200 or lower

Generally I shoot most things a ISO 200. This shot was a bit tough as the Lady Bug was less than 12mm (1/2") from the end of the lens. The white portion you are seeing is the head. The wings are located in the red body behind. The imagine is over 5x magnified (no cropping or resizing was done, what you see sizewise is what the sensor saw). I lighten the shot quickly. I considered cropping the image down just to the face, but that would hide the clue that it is a Ladybug. (plus macro men never crop - ha ha, just kidding)





Thank for looking,

Spyglass