photography

Hand-held caddisflies

/ Ted C. MacRae / 3 Comments

Chimarra sp. (Trichoptera: Philopotamidae) | Sam A. Baker State Park, Missouri

I recently found a folder in my files with a number of photos taken way back in April during a visit to Sam A. Baker State Park in the Ozark Highlands of southeastern Missouri. I never got around to posting them at the time, but there are some interesting photo series in the folder. One includes these photographs of an adult caddisfly (order Trichoptera). I remember seeing these insects in fair numbers resting on the foliage of shrubs alongside Big Creek and thinking they were some kind of archaic family of moths. Admittedly, it wasn’t until I got the photos up on the computer and saw the lack of any coiled proboscis for mouthparts, prominent maxillary and labial palps, and hairy rather than scaled wings that I realized what these were. My mistake is understandable—trichopterans are quite closely related to the order Lepidoptera, the two groups together forming an “ironclad” monophyletic clade (Wheeler et al. 2001).

The distinct palps, lack of proboscis and ”hairy” wings identify this insect as a caddisfly rather than a moth.

It was the beginning of this past season that I began practicing “hand-held” technique for insect macrophotography in earnest. I don’t use a tripod, so shooting insects resting on foliage requires that I brace my body to minimize movement. This is fairly easy if I can sit or crouch but very difficult if I have to stand. Moreover, even if I can manage to eliminate body movement, the plant on which the insect is resting often moves because of wind. What is really needed is a way to “lock” the relative positions of the camera and subject—movement is fine as long as both camera and subject are moving together. That’s where hand-holding the subject comes in… well, handy! I’ve learned to carry a small folding scissors in my waist pack when I am in the field, and by very gently grasping the petiole of the leaf on which the insect is perched with my left-hand thumb and forefinger and snipping the petiole with the scissors, I can detach the leaf without disturbing the insect and then hold it in any position and against any background that I desire. To take the photograph, I hold the camera in my right and and rest the lens on my left wrist or the base of my left thumb and then fine tune the position of the insect on the leaf while composing through the viewfinder. In this manner I not only lock the subject-lens distance but also precisely control the composition and background. This works best with the MP-E 65mm lens—its working distance of only 4″ at 1X and even less at higher magnifications is perfectly suited for this technique. I do also use this technique with my 100mm lens, but it is more difficult to do because of the longer working distance of the lens and resulting need to rest the camera further back on the left forearm. At any rate, these photos represent some of my earliest efforts using what I call the “left wrist” technique.

Among caddisflies, the blackish body and wings are characteristic for this genus.

I thank Dr. Robert Sites, University of Missouri-Columbia, for identifying the individual in these photos to the genus Chimarra in the family Philopotamidae (he also noted that male genitalic characters would be needed for species determination). Ferro and Sites (2007) listed three species of caddisflies in this genus from Sam A. Baker State Park (C. feria, C. obscura, and and unidentified Chimarra sp.).

REFERENCE:

Ferro, M. L. & R. W. Sites. 2007. The Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera of Missouri State Parks, with Notes on Biomonitoring, Mesohabitat Associations, and Distribution. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 80(2):105–129.

Wheeler, W.C, M. Whiting, Q.D. Wheeler & J.M. Carpenter. 2001. The phylogeny of extant hexapod orders. Cladistics 17: 113-169.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

How to deal with a crappy photo of a beautiful beetle

/ Ted C. MacRae / 21 Comments

One thing I’ve discovered after trying my hand at insect macrophotography for the past three years is that I take a lot more photos than I can possibly post. As a result, I tend to focus my efforts on more recent photos, especially those that have some kind of interesting natural history story to tell. Photos that don’t get posted soon after I took them tend to accumulate in my virtual “not yet posted” files, and periodically I need to browse through them to re-acquaint myself with any that I may have since forgotten about. Not all of these “other” photos are bad or uninteresting—they just happened to be taken at a time when I had other photos that I was more interested in using. Admittedly, however, there truly are some rather ugly photos in these archives, and the older they are the more frequently I find myself asking, “Why in the heck did I even keep that photo?” (hopefully this indicates improvement in my standards of what constitutes a photo worth keeping).

Cicindela limbalis | nr. Laramie, Wyoming

There is, however, a lesson here to be learned, and that is don’t be too quick to send to the recycle bin a photo that at first sight appears not worth keeping. Take, for example, this photograph of Cicindela limbalis (Common Claybank Tiger Beetle). This pretty little species is broadly distributed in Canada and the northern U.S. from New England across the Great Plains to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Different populations show differing degrees of maculation, and here in Missouri the species is nearly immaculate. I found the individual in the above photo in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest as an example of the more completely maculated forms. However, since it was the only individual I saw in that location I didn’t try to photograph it in the field. Instead, I captured it and photographed it later in the “studio” (my hotel room). Sadly, this was in September 2010 when I was still a rank beginner in terms of insect macrophotography, and as a result I was far less versed on such details as lighting and composition than I am now. I’m ashamed to say that I thought this photo was “good enough.”

Of course, by today’s standards that is one crappy photo! If it wasn’t the sole photo that I have from that population I wouldn’t hesitate to throw it away. However, since I’ve been putting some effort recently into honing my Photoshop skills, I thought I would see if I could “rescue” from this crappy photo a halfway decent one. I did this as follow:

  • I opened the “Levels” tool, clicked on the “Set White Point” button, and touched the cursor to an area of the upper background. This not only eliminated most of the gray tinge in the background but also brightened up the beetle quite a bit. I brightened the beetle even more by pulling the left slider button in the “Input Levels” box a little more to the right (12). In the case of this photo, such levels adjustments were sufficient, but in some cases I might also slightly reduce shadowing using the “Shadows/Highlights” tool (2–10% is usually enough) or adjust color using the “Adjust Hue/Saturation” tool (whether you increase or decrease saturation, a light touch is best).
  • With the background brightened up, the debris spots were even more visible and needed to be cleaned up. This was easily accomplished with the “Spot Healing Brush” tool. I keep the size setting as small as possible for each spot while still encompassing the entirety of the spot. Debris spots next to or on the surface of the beetle are better dealt with using the “Clone Stamp” tool—this tool is a little more involved than the Spot Healing Brush, since a source point needs to be selected for each spot. However, it is more effective than the Spot Healing Brush for spots that are in areas where the background is not uniform. Again, I use the smallest size possible and carefully consider the source point for each clone to achieve the best results.
  • The last major problem with this photo was its composition. If I were to take it again today, I would angle the front of the beetle higher in the photo and not clip the middle and hind tarsi or antennal tip as I did in this photo. There is not a lot (though there is a little) that can be done about the clipping, but I used the “Straighten” tool to change the angle of the beetle by clicking on the tip of the abdomen and dragging the cursor to somewhere between the lower front leg and antenna. This resulted in a more pleasing pose for the beetle, but of course it also created triangular areas of blank canvas on each side that had to be dealt with. To do this, I cropped the edges of the photo to remove as much of the blank canvas as I could without cropping off any more of the beetle (I did end up cropping a little bit of the left hind leg), then used the Clone Stamp tool to fill the remaining blank areas with white background (this is much more difficult when the background is not as uniform as in this photo). Careful cloning is required in areas that are close to the beetle to prevent unintended alterations, and in this case I even had to clone in a fake lower tarsus for the middle leg and antennal tip for the left antenna to fill gaps that I could not crop. Cloning in new body parts is not always possible, and even when it is possible it’s not easy; however, with care and practice reasonable results can be achieved. In the case of this beetle it was not too difficult since the body parts that needed to be cloned were just short extensions of already blurred parts.

Lastly, I used typical “Unsharp Mask” settings to sharpen the photo, and here is the final result:

This photo won’t win any awards, but it is a completely serviceable illustration of the species.

This is still not a great photo—in addition to the clipping, the focus is a tad too deep and the beetle has assumed that dreaded “ground hugging” pose that I so detest with confined subjects. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be ashamed to use this photo if none better were available.

What alternative techniques would you have used on reworking this photo?

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Post processing—then and now

/ Ted C. MacRae / 10 Comments

I recently happened upon one of my first attempts at post processing a photograph of a pinned insect specimen. The subject was Anomalipus elephas (large armoured darkling beetle), a tank of an insect (this example measuring 32 mm in length) belonging to the family Tenebrionidae. At the time, I was quite pleased with the results of my crude post processing efforts and proudly posted the “enhanced” photo in full-sized glory for all to behold. Since then, I’ve gained some experience with post processing of photos, and when I saw the processed photo this time I knew that there was considerable room for improvement. I thought it might be interesting to give the photo another PP whack and compare the two efforts from then and now.

Here is the original photo—keep in mind that the photo was taken with a small (though fairly decent) point-and-shoot camera (Panasonic DMC-FX3) a few months before I made the move to my current dSLR setup. I pinned the specimen to a styrofoam board, illuminated it with two 23w compact fluorescent light bulbs, and took the photo with the camera set on its “macro” setting. For the original post processed version (using Adobe Photoshop Elements version 6.0), I rotated and cropped the photo, then increased brightness and contrast (I don’t remember the values for each), used the clone tool to remove the pinhead (I’d just figured out how to do this), and increased sharpness using unsharp mask. This is all well and good (although I think the added contrast was a little excessive); however, I did make two big mistakes. The first was using the eraser tool to create a white background—a tedious process, especially around the perimeter of the subject to avoid “clipping” any of the subject’s body. The second was leaving the numerous small pieces of debris clinging to the subject. Debris on pinned (and even live) specimens is now a pet peeve of mine—I find it detracts greatly from the appearance of the photo, yet it is remarkably easy to remove in all but the most extreme of cases. At any rate, here is the result of that original attempt:

For the latest attempt, I rotated and cropped the original photo as before. Next, I created a white background, not with the “Eraser Tool” but rather by opening “Levels”, clicking on “Set White Point”, and touching the darkest part of the background. Voilá—a beautiful white background with no clipped subject edges! The subject still needed to be brightened up (two 23w fluorescent bulbs don’t put out that much light); however, instead of directly adjusting brightness I set “Lighten Shadows” to a value of +30% (a rather heavy handed setting) to also reduce shadows around the subject’s legs. Then I used the “Clone Stamp Tool” to clone out the pinhead, but this time I didn’t stop there—I continued using the tool to clone out all of the tiny little pieces of debris on the subject surface. Using the clone stamp tool effectively requires some practice, but eventually one learns to adjust the size and define the source set point to achieve almost perfect results. Lastly, I increased sharpness with “Unsharp Mask” (118%, 1.0 pixels, 8 levels). That’s it—took me all of about 3 or 4 minutes to post process the original photo to achieve the following result:

To compare the two post-processed images directly click here. Of course, my current camera setup is capable of much higher quality photographs than the point-and-shoot used for the subject of this post; however, the sequence of post processing  steps that I use is essentially the same (if less heavy handed). One final note—I am not a Photoshop expert, and perhaps some of the processes I have described can be done even more effectively or easily than in the manner I have described. I would welcome any comments or tips that you think might offer a better way to post process photos of pinned specimens.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Photographing the Limestone Tiger Beetle

/ Ted C. MacRae / 9 Comments

Seeing and photographing the beautifully black Prairie Tiger Beetles (Cicindelidia obsoleta vulturina) in southwestern Oklahoma was a lot of fun, but by Day 5 I was ready to look for one of my top goals for the trip—Cicindelidia politula (Limestone Tiger Beetle). Occurring primarily in Texas (but also sneaking up into Oklahoma), this would be my first attempt to search for the species. I had gotten a few localities in northern Texas from trusty colleagues, and I knew the beetles occurred on limestone outcroppings in dry to xeric upland habitats (Pearson et al. 2006)—usually starting in late September.  Nevertheless, I always get a little apprehensive when I drive long distances to look for tiger beetles I’ve never seen before. Will I recognize it? What if I find another, similar looking but more common species and assume I’ve found it? Will the season be right? Many species, especially those associated with xeric habitats, depend on timely rains to make their appearance. Will I find the proper microhabitat? There are sometimes seemingly minor details that can make a habitat suitable or not for a particular species.

Cicindelidia politula politula | Montague Co., Texas

As can be seen by the above photo, I did succeed in finding the species. However, it wasn’t easy, and for the better part of Day 5 I wondered if I would even be able to capture a specimen, much less succeed in photographing the species in its native habitat. I actually saw the first individual of this species in Oklahoma—sitting on the very first exposed limestone rock at the very first locality I went to. My rule for photographing tiger beetles that I’ve never seen before is to collect the first individual and keep it alive in a vial. In the event I never see another individual or fail in my attempts to photograph them in the field, the first individual becomes my voucher specimen and studio backup. Fortunately, I rarely have to resort to studio shots, but in this case I muffed my attempt to capture the specimen! I searched the locality for a good hour and never saw another one until I circled back to where I started, and there it was again (it just had to be the same one). Believe it or not, I muffed the capture attempt once again! That was my last chance at the Oklahoma site, so it was a rather dejected 2-hour drive south to Montague Co. in northern Texas—knowing that I’d seen it and had my shot at it (two shots, actually) but still found myself empty-handed.

A serviceable photo, but like most of confined individuals it suffers from lack of ”pizzazz.”

My luck improved in Montague Co., although not right away or that much when it did. I had just about given up at this second locality when I saw one. This time I used the stalk-and-slap technique followed by a quick pounce to seal down the net around its perimeter and prevent escape by the beetle (they are real good at quickly finding the tiniest gap between the net rim and the ground and then zipping away in a flash). This time I succeeded in capturing the beetle and thus had my voucher, but my pounce was a little too rough on the beetle, resulting in an extruded genital capsule. This made it completely unusable for photographs (imagine a big orange blob sticking out of the butt of the beetle—not good, photographically!). Of course, finding a beetle at the site caused me to spend more time searching, but I never saw another beetle there.

The shiny black to blue-black elytra with white markings absent or limited to the apices are characteristic for the species.

At this point I had a decision to make—if I drove to the next locality on my list (2-hour drive), I probably would not arrive with enough time before sunset to find beetles. I decided not to waste the remaining daylight and instead just bushwhack where I was to look for similar roadside habitats and drive on after sunset. I found another good habitat fairly quickly, and within minutes after starting the search I saw one—and missed it! But then I saw another one—and missed it, too! Now my confidence was shaken, as neither of the two techniques I use most commonly for capturing tiger beetles were working. When I used the “stalk-and-slap” method the beetles always found a gap on the rough, rocky ground and got away, and when I used the “tap-and-sweep” method the beetles would hunker down at first and then fly right after the net passed over them. I would miss a total of eight (eight!) beetles before I finally (finally!) caught one, and then I would miss three more beetles afterwards! That single beetle is shown in the above photographs, which were taken after placing the beetle on a large, flat limestone rock that I laid on the bed in my hotel room that night (carrying that huge limestone rock into the hotel room was an experience!).

I really dislike photographing confined insects. Even if one prepares a wholly natural looking set and manages to cajole the subject into standing still, they rarely look quite right. I do like the first photo in the series, just because it’s a well composed face shot, but I’m not so fond of the more ‘classic’ view of the beetle represented by the second photo. Technically it’s an adequate photo that shows the beetle and all of its salient characters; however, it lacks, well… oomph, because the beetle isn’t really doing anything—the photo tells no natural history story. Still, an adequate photo that lacks oomph is better than no photo at all, so I made the best of my opportunity to take studio shots of the one good beetle I had and hoped for better luck the next day.

Exposed limestone road bank in Johnson Co., Texas—perfect habitat for Cicindelidia politula

The next day brought the luck that I was looking for. I was close to the next locality on my list when I saw a road bank with exposed limestone that just seemed to call out, “Search me!” I stopped and began searching, and within a few minutes I saw the first beetle—and missed it! Arghhh, not again! I would actually miss a few more before I finally caught one, so by now my confidence was destroyed. It’s been a long since I’ve had this much trouble catching tiger beetles, and if I was having this much trouble catching them, how on earth could I even contemplate trying to photograph them. However, the nice thing about finding a spot where beetles are out in numbers is the opportunity to try again—practice makes perfect. I decided my previous attempts had all been a little too lackadaisical and started buckling down and really concentrating on my technique. Not surprisingly, I started having success in capturing the elusive beetles (tap-and-sweep worked best), and after a time I felt like I had a good enough feel for the beetle’s behavior to begin trying for field photographs.

Cicindelidia politula politula | Johnson Co., Texas

Not surprisingly, given how difficult they were to catch, this also proved to be one of the most difficult species of tiger beetle that I’ve ever tried to photograph. Like many other tiger beetles that live in hot, xeric, open habitats they were extremely wary and difficult to approach, a behavior that was exacerbated by the now midday sun. Their escape flights were not very far, but far enough that if I’d already gotten into a prone position I had to get up and start all over again. The task was made even more difficult by the hard, jagged, rough-edge rocks on which I had to lay and crawl—ouch! Several individuals are represented in the field photographs shown here, each of which I had to “work” for some amount of time before I was able to finally get close enough to start taking photos (and representing only a few of the many individuals that I actually spent time “working”). Usually, the first photos of an individual are never very good but start the process of getting the beetle accustomed to my presence and the periodic flash of light. Eventually, if I’m lucky, it settles down and resumes normal searching and thermoregulatory behaviors, and I can then get as close as I want and really work the angles for a variety of compositions. I no longer try to approach beetles from the ‘proper’ angle; they turn so much while moving about that it’s easier to just wait for them to assume desired angles as they move about and be ready to shoot when it happens. Field photography of unconfined tiger beetles in their native habitat is hard and time consuming, but the results are well worth the effort. Compare the staged photos of the Montague Co. individual with the field photos from Johnson Co. What marvelous displays of active beetles engaged in natural behaviors in their native habitat the latter represent!

By midday the adults start ”sun-facing” to minimize thermal exposure in their hot, xeric habitats.

After getting several good photos of the beetle in its habitat, I decided it was time to try for some really close photos and added a full set of extension tubes to the camera. A set of tubes with a 100mm macro lens provides close to 2X magnification, but it also reduces the available working distance—a real challenge with wary tiger beetles under a midday sun! I spent quite a bit of time trying to get close enough to take advantage of the additional magnification, but I wasn’t successful until I encountered the individual in the photos below shade-seeking at the base of a yucca plant. Shade-seeking beetles tend to stay put and not move as much (although they still rarely just sit there).

Shade-seeking is another strategy to avoid the midday heat.

I worked this beetle for several minutes and managed to get a number of shots, each closer than the previous and culminating in the nice portrait below.

The ”pièce de résistance”—Cicindelidia politula politula at 2X life size!

My photographic appetite now completely satiated, I spent the rest of the day searching for (and finding) additional localities for the species in the area. I found them more often associated with older, level exposures that had at least a small amount of vegetation. In contrast, newer or steeply sloped exposures or those completely devoid of vegetation rarely had beetles associated with them. I had now spent two days working on C. politula, but the results—both as a collector and as a photographer—made it time well spent. I felt like I “understood” the beetle. However, with only two days left in the trip, it was time to start working my way back towards Missouri and focusing on the few additional goals I still had for the trip.

REFERENCE:

Pearson, D. L., C. B. Knisley and C. J. Kazilek. 2006. A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada. Oxford University Press, New York, 227 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

A classic fall ‘bycid

/ Ted C. MacRae / 13 Comments

In eastern North America, autumn is the beginning of the end for most insect groups. Preparations for winter are either complete or well underway—eggs have been laid, nests have been provisioned, and larvae (hopefully) have eaten well enough to endure the long, cold months that lie ahead. But for a few insects, fall is just a beginning. Triggered by cooler temperatures, shortened daylength, and invigorating rains, adults of these insects burst forth under crisp, blue skies to feed amongst a plethora of fall flowers or prey upon other late season insects before the advancing cold, finally, forces a close to the season. As a beetle man, my favorite fall insects must be the “fall tigers” (i.e., tiger beetles) that come out in force and zip across barren sand dunes or bask on exposed rocks of dolomite glades. My fall insect collecting focuses almost exclusively on these insects, since my other favorite groups (jewel beetles and longhorned beetles) are, for the most part, restricted in their adult activity to the spring and summer months and long gone by the time fall rolls around. There are, however, a few longhorned beetles that buck the normal spring/summer rule for the family, namely species in the genus Megacyllene. The most commonly encountered of these is Megacyllene robiniae (locust borer), and anyone who has examined goldenrod (genus Solidago) and its profuse blooms during the fall has likely encountered this familiar beetle with its narrow, alternating, zig-zag bands of black and yellow.¹ I have seen this species many times and in many places; however, I still always enjoy seeing it anew in the field each fall—perhaps as some sort of confirmation that the fall season truly has arrived.

¹ If you see a “locust borer” in the spring, it is actually the closely related Megacyllene caryae (hickory borer), while further west in the Great Plains during fall you might find Megacyllene comanchei.

Megacyllene decora (amorpha borer) | Mississippi Co., Missouri

Another species in the genus that is far less commonly encountered, however, is Megacyllene decora (amorpha borer). I have encountered this stunningly beautiful species in only a handful of locations in Missouri (MacRae 1994)—all where stands of its larval host plant, Amorpha fruticosa (false indigo), grow in association with goldenrod and snakeroot (genus Eupatorium). These sites are primarily in the big river valleys of the state (Missouri and Mississippi Rivers), although I have found at least one site in the prairies of west central Missouri. Earlier this summer while traveling through the southeastern lowlands of Missouri, I noticed a stand of native Hibiscus growing within a wet ditch along the edge of a small city park and stopped by to look for the even rarer Hibiscus-associated jewel beetle, Agrilus concinnus (MacRae & Nelson 2003, MacRae 2006). While I did not find that species, I did notice fairly good numbers of A. fruticosa plants along the edge of the ditch as well and young goldenrod plants that had not yet reached flowering stage. At that moment I knew I had a good potential site to look for M. decora and made a mental note to stop at the site again later in the season when goldenrod began to bloom.

The species is distinguished from related species in the eastern U.S. by its wide black and yellow bands.

Last week I returned to the site to find not only goldenrod in its earliest stages of bloom, but an even greater number of Eupatorium serotinum plants already in bloom. I wanted to photograph the beetle, of course, but what I was really hoping for was to find and photograph the beetle on the stems of its Amorpha host plant (I have only seen this once before—all other sightings of the beetle have been on flowers of goldenrod and snakeroot). I approached each Amorpha clump cautiously and searched the stems carefully, also keeping an eye on the goldenrod and snakeroot blooms as I moved from one clump to the next. After searching a number of clumps, I finally found the adult shown in these photos. Fortunately, I knew from previous experience in collecting these beetles that they are not a particularly wary species (few aposematically- or mimetically-colored beetle are), so I was able to get a number of good photographs before I (stupidly) bumped the beetle with the diffuser over my flash heads and disturbed it.

”Blue sky” settings: ISO160–200, 1/200 sec, f/14–16, camera pointed near (not at) the sun.

It would be another half hour before I would find a second beetle, and in total on the day I saw only three (all on Eupatorium). This and the very early stage of the goldenrod blooms suggests to me that the beetles were just beginning to emerge—over the next few weeks I am sure they will become more numerous at the site, so I may yet have an opportunity to photograph one on its larval host plant when I pass by the area in a couple of weeks.

Normal ”normal” full-flash settings: ISO100, 1/250 sec, f/16.

REFERENCES:

MacRae, T. C. 1994. Annotated checklist of the longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae and Disteniidae) known to occur in Missouri. Insecta Mundi 7(4) (1993):223–252.

MacRae, T. C. 2006. Distributional and biological notes on North American Buprestidae (Coleoptera), with comments on variation in Anthaxia (Haplanthaxia) viridicornis (Say) and A. (H.) viridfrons Gory. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 82(2):166–199.

MacRae, T. C., and G. H. Nelson. 2003. Distributional and biological notes on Buprestidae (Coleoptera) in North and Central America and the West Indies, with validation of one species. The Coleopterists Bulletin 57(1):57–70.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Not quite a one-shot

/ Ted C. MacRae / 3 Comments

This little jumping spider (~8 mm in length) was in one of my soybean fields in west-central Illinois last week. She(?) was quite fidgety and kept jumping from the leaf on which I found her as I tried to carry the leaf out of the field to a more open and convenient place  to take photographs. Once I got out to the grassy field border, I managed to get one photograph (not shown but similar to this one) right before she jumped off the leaf yet again. However, I was able to find her and coax her back onto the leaf for this last shot before she jumped off again—never to be found again! I presume this spider belongs to the genus Phidippus based on the cephalic tufts, and within that genus maybe a species in the P. clarus group (corrections welcome!).

When I look at insect macrophotographs, I like to do reverse engineering on the lighting to figure out what was the flash/diffuser setup. I have a few different diffusers that I use depending on which lens I’m using and how important the photographs are. In this case, I was taking photographs of soybean insects for work purposes and didn’t bother putting on the larger concave diffuser that I use when I’m really concerned about getting more even lighting. Instead, I was just using my snap-on Sto-Fens+Gary Fong Puffers. The difference between these two diffuser setups and their effect on lighting is minor in many cases, but when photographing very shiny surfaces (such as the eyes of this spider) the differences are much more apparent, and it is obvious from this photo that I was using a twin flash unit with separate diffusers on each flash head.

There is one more feature apparent about the lighting in this photograph—note that the “left” flash head appears much more diffuse than the “right” flash head. This is because the right diffuser had actually fallen off of the flash head without me noticing (also never to be found again!). As a result, the light from only one of the flash heads was diffused, while that from the other hit the subject in all its harsh glory. I don’t really like the twin highlights that are the hallmark of twin macro flash units, and if I had known I was going to be photographing jumping spiders when I was in the soybean field I would have gone ahead and used my concave diffuser. I’ve also learned, however, that great photographs are not something that I can expect to pop off while concentrating on other activities—I need to concentrate fully on the photographs and spend a good amount of time doing it until I feel like I’ve gotten the shots that I want. I never really liked the Sto-Fen+Puffer diffusers, as they were only marginally better than no diffuser (and this photograph shows it), so losing one of them might be a blessing in disguise as now I’ll be motivated to try out some of the many other diffuser ideas I’ve been toying around with but never really taken the time to sit down and try them out.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Program Announcment: 2012 ESA Annual Meeting

/ Ted C. MacRae / 8 Comments

The Entomological Society of America recently posted the 2012 Program for their Annual Meeting this November in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I’m honored to announce that I’ll be giving a presentation in the Section A Symposium “Entomologists Beyond Borders: Hands on Macrophotography to Help Think Globally.” Let me say this straight out: this looks like a fabulous symposium, but I’m a bit intimidated at the prospect of sharing the stage with such renowned insect macrophotographers as Alex Wild, Thomas Shahan, Marlin Rice, etc. Nevertheless, I hope that the techniques I plan to share on locating and photographing live, often wary insects in their native habitats will be considered useful by at least some members of the audience. At this point, my talk is still an amorphous collection of ideas swirling around in my head (although, as you might predict, there will be many photos of tiger beetles!), thus, if there are any particular points you would like to see addressed now is the time to let me know.

I have been to a number of ESA meeting in the past, but the last was many years ago. I look forward to attending once again, reconnecting with old acquaintances and (hopefully) meeting many new ones. I hope to see you at the Entomologists Beyond Borders Symposium, and please don’t hesitate to come up and say hello.

When: Tuesday, November 13, 2012: 8:00 AM-12:45 PM
Where: Ballroom A, Floor Three (Knoxville Convention Center)
Organizers: Cheri M. Abraham and Ric Bessin
 
8:00 AM Welcoming Remarks
8:05 AM Introduction to insect macrophotography
Robert K. D. Peterson, Montana State University
8:35 AM This is not that difficult: Techniques for shooting digital macro-photography images of insects
Marlin E. Rice, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
9:05 AM Approaching the unapproachable: Tips and tricks for photographing live insects in their native habitats
Ted C. MacRae, Monsanto Company
9:25 AM Digital Imagery: Tips, tricks and tools to make impressive insect images
Jocelyn Gill, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
9:45 AM Methods of magnification
Thomas Shahan, N/a
10:15 AM Photographing insects on a budget
Alexander L. Wild, University of Illinois
10:45 AM Digital image processing: One perspective on organization, correction and retrieval of images
Eugene D. White, Rose Pest Solutions
11:15 AM Concluding Remarks
11:20 AM Hands on workshop

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012

Life at 8X—soybean aphid

/ Ted C. MacRae / 12 Comments

Although my first attempt at adding extension tubes to my Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens, effectively converting it from a 1–5X to a 1.7–8.0X lens, was nearly a year ago, it has only been recently that I’ve actually started experimenting with this combination to obtain high-mag photographs of very small insects in the field. The first example that I showed of such a photograph was a tiny seed weevil (Althaeus sp.) on its hibiscus host plant. I’ve since photographed a number of other insect subjects at high-mag using this setup and am getting a better feel for the capabilities—and limitations—inherent in using it. First, here is what the setup actually looks like:

Canon 50D body, MP-E 65mm macro lens on 68mm extension, MT-24EX twin flash w/ DIY diffuser.

Not the normal photo quality for this site (just a quick field setup photographed with my I-Phone), but it shows just how long the lens component becomes when fully extended to achieve 8X magnification. The camera is quite front-heavy, making the camera difficult to use hand-held, and the very shallow DOF (depth of field) due to the extreme level of magnification makes precise focusing difficult and magnifies the effect of any motion between the camera and subject. Obviously, one solution for these problems is to mount the camera on a tripod and place the subject on a stable surface; however, for reasons I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it is unlikely that I will ever take to bringing a tripod into the field, and the whole point of this exercise is to develop the capability for getting usable hand-held field photographs no matter what level of magnification they may require. As an alternative, I use a number of other techniques, discussed in my prior post on the subject, to stabilize the camera without using a tripod.

One of the recent subjects I photographed with this setup is the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines (order Hemiptera, family Aphididae). This distinctive Asian species has recently established in the U.S. as invasive pest of soybeans; adult females measure only 1–2 mm in length (and the nymphs are even smaller) and can quickly develop very high densities on the leaves and upper stems of soybean plants. The following photograph was taken at the camera setup’s minimum magnification of 1.7X and provides a typical view of adult aphids and their progeny:

Aphis glycines (soybean aphid) | Warren Co., Illinois

While the above photograph does a very good job of showing the colonial appearance of infestations by these aphids on soybean foliage, what about the aphids themselves? It would be nice to get a better look at individual aphids. The following photographs were all taken with the lens fully extended to achieve 8X magnification (and completely hand-held):

Adult female aphid—note the eye spots of the unborn nymphs visible within the body.

Another adult female navigates the hairs on the surface of the soybean leaf (I never knew soybean leaves were so hairy!).

A mother surrounded by her progeny. As above, eye spots of unborn nymphs can be seen inside her body.

These photographs are not without their problems—they are a bit soft, probably due to motion blur that results from the camera being hand-held and the extremely thin DOF that makes it difficult to get all of the desired components of the photos equally in focus. Lighting also is a challenge, as the very small subject-to-lens distance forces light from the flash to come from directly above or even behind the subject while minimizing front lighting (especially evident in the last photo with its straight down view). Nevertheless, these are decent, usable photographs that provide an uncommon view of these exceedingly tiny insects—without the encumbrance of carrying a tripod in the field, the time investment of studio photography and/or focus-stacking, or the expense of a microscope-mounted camera system (for those of us without access to such systems).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2012