Perpetual insect photo thread

[kgosden]

Gabriel,

What the heck is that last bug? Very wide spaced eyes on that that first one a damselfly?

[kgosden]

Falconest I have yet to figure out how to identify the different dragonflies I capture. I even bought a very comprehensive guide to Georgia and southeastern dragons and damsels. I was at the local nature center for a butterfly release and ended up with a lot more dragonfly shots. Here are a couple. I assume the first one is some type of pennant. It was perched about 6 feet over my head in the top of a tree. Not at all certain about the second.

[GabrielC]

Gabriel,

What the heck is that last bug? Very wide spaced eyes on that that first one a damselfly?

Damselfly, Dragonfly and Glasswind Butterfly (Greta Oto - scientific name)

[blindeye]

Wow! Incredible dragons, damsels and butterflies in here. Great work guys.

I finally coughed up the $$ for the Canon MP-E65. Now I regret having waited this long.
Here are a few of my initial shots with it:

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


Hmm. Looks like I'm past due on sensor cleaning too...

Feedback greatly appreciated.

-Brandon

[Anthony]

Our dragonflys and Damsonflys are back as well - about 6 weeks later than last year. May have been waiting for the rain as we have had alot of that!

Anyway I can get nowhere as close as Falconest174 and kgosden and it is frustrating. From the EXIF data it looks as though you are both using about 300mm. My largest lens only goes up to 85mm and it seems the more I zoom in the further back I have to go to focus which negates the benifit of the zoom!

Would a 70-300mm zoom be of use in this case and is there anything else I need to consider?

I fancy a 70-300mm L Canon lens but I am unsure how much use it would get and it will not take a converter and neither will my second choice of a EF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM which I find very irritating.
I do not want a 70-200 mainly due to the physical size and the same goes for a 100-400.

[Anthony]

Some great photos Brandon.

[kgosden]

Anthony,

Longer telephoto lenses can be great for 'macro' insect work. Generally 200-300mm works well giving a 3-5 ft close focus distance; far enough to not spook the subject. Some like my 70-300 have a close focus switch that changes to manual focus to extend the macro range. My Sigma 50-500 only gets within 6ft which is almost too far. At that distance there is no benefit in the size of the subject in the final image compared to the much smaller and lighter 70-300.

[Anthony]

Thanks for the info kgosden; looks like I will be buying a new lens.

I was not happy with any of todays photos; even cropping did not work as I lost about 3/4 of the image to get a resonable size output. I also missed out on a nice metalic green damson fly which was a lot nicer than the dragon flys as it was out over the water.

[Falconest174]

Blindeye;
Incredible close-ups!
The 70-300 is what I use for d-flies. They are large enough that you can get a nice size image without getting too close. As the 60th Anniv edition that I am now using only allows me to get a bit less than 5 ft, away it works very well with dragonflies most of which are larger than other insects. I have used the Sigma 150 quite successfully with damselflies which are mostly much smaller and less likely to react to your presence at less than 3 feet or so. If they do, they usually only fly a few feet and are easily followed for a second or third try.
Kgosden;
the top one looks a bit like a Halloween Pennant but does not have the typically amber wing color between the color spots.
They bottom one might be a species of setwing.

[GabrielC]

How do you find the 70-300 Tamron ?