[WPRESTO]

One of the most commonly photographed small insect. There are a bewildering number of species

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[Doundounba]

One of the most commonly photographed small insect.

Indeed! They seem to be most abundant in the late summer and early fall. Yours appears to have a fungus infection (Laboulbeniales). I shot this red one on Monday and am quite pleased with the results (if I may say so myself).

[WPRESTO]

Indeed! They seem to be most abundant in the late summer and early fall. Yours appears to have a fungus infection (Laboulbeniales). I shot this red one on Monday and am quite pleased with the results (if I may say so myself).

Absolutely spot-on focus with zero blurring makes that image, - - spot on!

[WPRESTO]

Taking a picture of a mushroom, but I caught some tiny fellows making a meal of it (second image is a deep crop, = not the best IQ but I thought it was interesting).

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[Thagomizer]

Great composition on the ladybug, Dounounba! Composition is something I have to do better at. Sometimes, particularly on night shoots, I'm just happy enough to get anything in focus at all that composition takes a bit of a back seat. Small moving subjects with their own agendas aren't always amenable to taking direction, either.

[WPRESTO]

Ant & assassin bug

[FreeSpirit9]

[Doundounba]

Absolutely spot-on focus with zero blurring makes that image, - - spot on!

Thanks!

Great composition on the ladybug, Dounounba! Composition is something I have to do better at. Sometimes, particularly on night shoots, I'm just happy enough to get anything in focus at all that composition takes a bit of a back seat. Small moving subjects with their own agendas aren't always amenable to taking direction, either.

Thanks & I hear you about composition! I haven't done any night shooting, but even in the daytime, shooting handheld and working with live, completely free subjects - it's tough! Even if the subject is still, the branch it's sitting on can move because of wind, and one's own slight, uncontrollable movements make composition haphazard at best. I often wind up with a well-composed shot that is out of focus, and an in focus shot that isn't well-composed (plus many that are neither)...

In the shot above I did "crop for composition", a bit moreso than I normally allow myself, because I really love the angle, the "peekaboo" effect & the geometry of the lines. I kept about 17.4MP and moved the subject to the right of the frame with the crop. I shot 33 frames of this subject, but only had this one with the very frontal angle and it really stood out from all the others. I love to have the insect level (or close to level) with the viewer - so often we're (literally) looking down on insects because they are so small...

[photolady95]

This was outside my window today and though not tack sharp, I'm posting anyway.

[photolady95]

I followed this one around the yard for 30 minutes before I got a good shot. Tamron 90mm Adaptall 2, manual focus.



I searched bugguide.net through 36 pages but could not find one exactly like this with an actual name besides just Dragonfly.

[WPRESTO]

A western butterfly that was not listed in my eastern butterflies id book.

[Skodadriver]

I have no experience with Butterflies except that I took an image of one similar to yours that I later identified (hopefully accurately) as a Small Tortoiseshell, found in Britain. This one of yours might be a small or a Large Tortoiseshell (apparently extinct since 1953 in Britain but what it might be doing over there in the states I have no idea). No doubt someone who knows will tell you.

[WPRESTO]

I have no experience with Butterflies except that I took an image of one similar to yours that I later identified (hopefully accurately) as a Small Tortoiseshell, found in Britain. This one of yours might be a small or a Large Tortoiseshell (apparently extinct since 1953 in Britain but what it might be doing over there in the states I have no idea). No doubt someone who knows will tell you.

I strongly suspect the one pictured belongs to the Nymphalidae, commonly called "brush footed butterflies." It's size, wing shape and dorsal coloration are similar to an eastern butterfly commonly called a "comma" (because of a small bright silver mark on the underside of the wing). The Nymphalidae has the largest number of species of any family of Lepidoptera. The chances of this one being the same species as one from the eastern USA much less Britain are effectively zero.

[TER-OR]

A couple wasps for today:
Sceliphron caementarium mud dauber on smoke in the mountain
[IMG][/IMG]

Potter Wasp Eumenes fraternus on smartweed
[IMG][/IMG]

Myzinum quinquecinctum male wasp on smoke in the mountain

[Thagomizer]

My theme today is "goldenrod". This is only a small sample of the insect diversity I saw clambering and flying about the goldenrod I passed in my travels this afternoon.

First off, I think this is something called a "wasp beetle", though none of the images I found online sported the profusion of stripes shown by this specimen. I've never seen one of these beasties before.



A bit closer:



I think a wasp of some kind. Afraid I'm not up on the Linnean binomials for any of these.



Another wasp, I'm guessing.



An "emerald bee" as I like to call them. I love the pattern in the eyes. Would this pattern be the result of something similar to that which produces the black dot that "follows" the viewer in the eyes of praying mantis?



The above were all handheld, single images taken with the Sigma 70mm f2.8 macro (not a Sigma 30mm f 1.4 as indicated by EXIF). I haven't tried my hand at stacking yet. I used my K-S2's built in flash with custom made Starbuck's tall, skim milk pumpkin spice latte diffuser. This was made on location as I had forgotten my usual Pringles tin diffuser. Recycling at its best.