Three invertebrate images + Additional Photos

[Amy Nelson]

All very impressive macro shots, brave too!

 

[Rick Nantais]

To say hello, here are three images from my archive. (I haven't photographed any invertebrates yet this year.)

#1 Captured in October 2012 using natural light with a Raynox 150 close-up lens on a 45-175 lens on a micro four thirds Panasonic G3, with the camera on a tripod. I don't recall if it was hands-off or hands-on the camera (At that time I quite often used a tripod to damp down hand-shake motion but kept my hands on the camera to retain flexibility for framing and focusing, and to allow an element of tracking if the subject moved a bit. Shot raw and processed in DXO PhotoLab then Silkypix then Lightroom.


1081 01 G3 P1710921_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2 Around 2mm long. Captured hand-held in December 2020 using a Venus Optics KX800 twin flash on a full frame Sony A7ii with a pair of Kenko 2X EF mount teleconverters with an EF mount Laowa 100mm 2X macro lens and a Sigma MC-11 EF to E mount adapter. Shot raw and processed in DXO PhotoLab then Lightroom then Topaz DeNoise AI.


1865 036 1851 06 2020_12_19 DSC08627_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAIcMedHi by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3 Captured in August 2018 with a Panasonic FZ330 small (1/2.3") sensor bridge camera used hands-on on a tripod, with a Raynox 150 close-up lens and a Venus Optics KX800 twin flash. For some years I have worked hand-held almost all the time with invertebrates, but in this case I used the tripod to keep the camera pointing at the entrance of the wasps' nest for sessions typically lasting an hour or so. I ended up capturing 7,000 or so images (most of which had at most only part of a wasp in them, more often none - wasps move very fast) using a variety of kit, letting me compare results with different kit for the same scene.

Shot raw and processed in Silkypix then DXO PhotoLab then Lightroom then Topaz DeNoise AI.


1834 Close-up lens example 2 3 P1490474 SP10_PLab3NoNR LR 1300h-DNAIcLoLo by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Wow ! Fantastic !

 

[gardenersassistant]

All very impressive macro shots,

Wow ! Fantastic !

Thanks Amy. Thanks Rick.

brave too!

Or, as a couple of people hinted, stupid. They were too polite to put it that way, but they were obviously concerned. Apparently it can get very nasty very quickly if the wasps get annoyed. I didn't know that at the time. But they didn't seem to take any notice of me. It was the same with the previous nest we had. That said, the year after the second one we had another nest, this time in amongst a tangle of flowers in a flower bed. It was very awkward to get at and as I was looking around trying to find the entrance to the nest they started buzzing around me in what felt like a very threatening way. I backed off and left them to it.