[Thagomizer]

I was out the other night and came across a couple of cicadas. One of them took off with a rattly, paperlike flapping of wings and ended up on my shoulder. I coaxed it onto my finger, where I was able to use my hand as an impromptu focus rail with subject attached.

Sigma 70mm f2.8

[Canada_Rockies]

I was out the other night and came across a couple of cicadas. One of them took off with a rattly, paperlike flapping of wings and ended up on my shoulder. I coaxed it onto my finger, where I was able to use my hand as an impromptu focus rail with subject attached.

That is one heck of a great series! What a weird looking creature that is. We don't have any of those things up here in the Rocky Mountains.

[ChipB]

I was out the other night and came across a couple of cicadas. One of them took off with a rattly, paperlike flapping of wings and ended up on my shoulder. I coaxed it onto my finger, where I was able to use my hand as an impromptu focus rail with subject attached.

Sigma 70mm f2.8

God how I hate those things!!! But some very good photos!!

[Thagomizer]

Thanks Canada_Rockies and ChipB!

[aslyfox]

I was very leery about getting close to this guy

SOOC

crop and pp

K 3 II + SMC Pentax-D FA 100mm F2.8 Macro

hand held, natural light

[Thagomizer]

Cross posted from "Show me your insects." Sigma 70mm f2,8.

Candy striped leaf-hopper, a perennial favourite.



---------- Post added 09-05-18 at 09:58 AM ----------

Waiting for lunch. A two frame homebrew stack with the front claw detail added from a second shot using PS layers to the base image taken at the same time.



"Hello down there!" Shield bug.



Click beetle.

[ChipB]

Cross posted from "Show me your insects." Sigma 70mm f2,8.

Candy striped leaf-hopper, a perennial favourite.



---------- Post added 09-05-18 at 09:58 AM ----------

Waiting for lunch. A two frame homebrew stack with the front claw detail added from a second shot using PS layers to the base image taken at the same time.

"Hello down there!" Shield bug.

Click beetle.

Some very interesting critters! Well shot (and found).

[Thagomizer]

Thanks. Sometimes the finding is the hardest part, sometimes they come to you!

[cyberjunkie]

I already posted a few pictures taken with the Pentax-A Macro 4/100mm on the thread "Post your K-1 pics with vintage glasses", which I started time ago, and that needed some life
Here are two more.
It's my first post on this thread. I decided to show how good the old Pentax Heliar-type design still is on high-res digital sensors.
I bought one cause I wanted a manual focus lens that could be used in PTTL flash and needs no green button procedure.
Maybe is not on par with my macro favorites (F 50mm, FA 100mm, Sigma 70mm AF, Sigma 5.6/180mm MF), but is a hell of a lens!
The original on Flickr have been resized to 50%, but visualising the image at full size still shows plenty of sharpness, and a nice bokeh even sopped down to f/8.

[rgknief60]

Reluctantly removed this nest last Sunday night. It was hanging low, about 9 feet, and was going to hang even lower if it grew bigger. Since it was on the path to the mailbox, it was just a matter of time until I or my parents (in their 80s) got stung. They got stung by paper wasps in a nest hanging down from the door frame early this summer, and the localized reaction and discomfort lasted several days. I had a reaction to a honeybee sting in my teens. I did not have a reaction to a yellow jacket sting last summer. Since hornets are an unknown quantity, it was best to remove them.

Could not get my Metz to fire with K-1 in liveview mode. Since this was taken at night, I set the exposure time for 2 seconds, and manually triggered the flash.

If you look at the new cells, you will see one at top center and slightly to the right with a small white spot. I believe that is either an egg or tiny hornet larva. Almost all of the open cells had one.

For a period of time, no hummingbirds came to the feeder. Did not know why. After removal of the nest, the hummingbirds began to frequent the feeder the next day.


K1 & FA 100mm Macro f2.8.




Hornet's Nest Gif


Hornet's Nest, Crop

[ivanvernon]

Reluctantly removed this nest last Sunday night. It was hanging low, about 9 feet, and was going to hang even lower if it grew bigger. Since it was on the path to the mailbox, it was just a matter of time until I or my parents (in their 80s) got stung. They got stung by paper wasps in a nest hanging down from the door frame early this summer, and the localized reaction and discomfort lasted several days. I had a reaction to a honeybee sting in my teens. I did not have a reaction to a yellow jacket sting last summer. Since hornets are an unknown quantity, it was best to remove them.

Could not get my Metz to fire with K-1 in liveview mode. Since this was taken at night, I set the exposure time for 2 seconds, and manually triggered the flash.

If you look at the new cells, you will see one at top center and slightly to the right with a small white spot. I believe that is either an egg or tiny hornet larva. Almost all of the open cells had one.

For a period of time, no hummingbirds came to the feeder. Did not know why. After removal of the nest, the hummingbirds began to frequent the feeder the next day.


K1 & FA 100mm Macro f2.8.




Hornet's Nest Gif


Hornet's Nest, Crop

Man, those things look evil! Wondering how you got the top nest to twitch like that?

[rgknief60]

Wondering how you got the top nest to twitch like that?

That is an attempt at a animated gif file. It's basically a short video. You can choose the number of times it loops, or put it on continuous. I didn't start out to create one or else I'd have had more frames, rotation, and even exposure. Since I was on a tripod, the backround is stable. The nest was suspended by twine, and kept rotating, so I had 7 or 8 shots at slightly different angles.

I cropped all the files the same in Camera Raw. I copied all the files but the first and renamed them in reverse order to make the animation slighly longer.

I opened the files in CS6 extended as an image sequence, chose a slow frame rate. Then used the menu option "save for web" chose the size and options I wanted, and saved the animated gif.

You get a nicer animation if you take a short video, open it in Photoshop, export the files as an image sequence, and choose the frames you want to use in the animated gif.

There was another free program to create animated gifs that I used a number of years ago, but I don't recall the name.

Here is a crop from a different image showing a hornet in situ.


Hornet's nest, detail

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 12:12 PM ----------

I was very leery about getting close to this guy

That's why I took out the hornet's nest at night!

[ivanvernon]

That is an attempt at a animated gif file. It's basically a short video. You can choose the number of times it loops, or put it on continuous. I didn't start out to create one or else I'd have had more frames, rotation, and even exposure. Since I was on a tripod, the backround is stable. The nest was suspended by twine, and kept rotating, so I had 7 or 8 shots at slightly different angles.

I cropped all the files the same in Camera Raw. I copied all the files but the first and renamed them in reverse order to make the animation slighly longer.

I opened the files in CS6 extended as an image sequence, chose a slow frame rate. Then used the menu option "save for web" chose the size and options I wanted, and saved the animated gif.

You get a nicer animation if you take a short video, open it in Photoshop, export the files as an image sequence, and choose the frames you want to use in the animated gif.

There was another free program to create animated gifs that I used a number of years ago, but I don't recall the name.

Here is a crop from a different image showing a hornet in situ.


Hornet's nest, detail

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 12:12 PM ----------



That's why I took out the hornet's nest at night!

Thanks for sharing. Good show! Hope to see more of your work.

[Thagomizer]

Cross posted from "Show me your insects."

Came across this wasp a few weeks ago. It was sluggish and not all of its legs seemed to be working just right. It wasn't until after I saw the shots I'd taken that I noticed the broken left wing. It must have suffered some calamity.

Sigma 70mm f2.8

[rgknief60]

Thanks for sharing. Good show! Hope to see more of your work.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Too many things seem to compete for the same block of time!