Originally posted by Weevil Very nice Giant Moth...
I like the image. Thanks for posting it!
Your image was just the nudge I needed to run the last Polyphemus related stack I took in May.
As I walked by our river birch I saw a piece of bark that looked a bit big. Closer inspection revealed this moth. I took a few stacks, and only got one that was usable. Her movements, though not visible to me, were enough to make editing the stack a long tedious process. I did not disturb her for the wing shot as I thought she was pumping up her wings. You can see the one is quite wrinkled. It may not have inflated properly, as I found when I edited the image that she previously laid eggs. I tried after dark for a couple of stacks with flash, but she was more active, and was unable to assemble an image. I wound up using the images to make a flickering video of her movements.
The next morning she was gone, so I took stacks of her eggs. The two egg images are from two different stacks. The last stack I enlarged 200% and sharpened to show detail of the eggs. It is 3200x1800 at 200%, posted here at 1600x pixels.
All images taken with the K-1. The moth image was taken at 200mm. The two image stacks of the eggs were taken with a
Zongyi Freewalker Series 20mm F2.0 4-4.5x Super Macro. Our database has it listed as a Mitakon brand, but it is the same lens. It is a totally manual lens. I did not record aperture and magnification data. They recommend F2 for best detail, and not to go beyond f8, even though one can go to f16. When I picked it up a few minutes ago, the aperture is set at f5.6, well into diffraction territory. The trade-off is that I am unable to advance in small enough increments manually at F2 to make a decent stack, so I live with some diffraction. The aperture is clickless. It's basically an inexpensive microscope lens for your camera. A Nikon Plan Acromat microscope objective adapted for work with a Pentax lens can cost twice as much.
Polyphemus Moth with Eggs Polyphemus Moth Eggs Polyphemus Moth Egg Detail