>>>The Weekly Close Up 8/81 (all gear accepted) <<<

Since I wasn't able to shoot last week I thought I'd show a shot off of my phone. We were shopping for some flowers when I saw this Hummingbird moth. All I had was my phone so I made do as best as I could.









Thanks for looking

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JimB
Bug Whisperer
Join us in The Weekly Close up every weekend

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beach flower




texture - old Georgia longleaf pine




another butterfly




teeny tiny creepy things on driftwood - heavily cropped, they jump!

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- sergey

ID on the bug and flower would be cool....



















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Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.
Ansel Adams

There was some discussion this week about "sharpness", I think that this a good example where essential parts such as the eyes and wing veins are sharp but nothing is over sharpened, post processing, but I always feels composition is most critical, and nice composition here

Here are a few from the other day. Thanks for looking.

























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Bandy
Poor is the apprentice that does not surprise his master.
bandy.smugmug.com

Great catch on the hummingbird moth, Jim!

Beautifully colors and excellent variety of bugs, Deepak!

Silverfish on the last one? Great images!......

Superb set, Banj! Can't even pick a favorite here.....

Jim, these were all close ups, but of the whole flower with E5 and ZD 50mm macro. I cropped the centers for this thread. As you can see, sharpness varies. I'm looking forward to a camera with a five axis image stabilization. As W.C. Fields said, "I wake up in the morning and shake and jitter for an hour, or so. It's the only exercise I get." Rich









http://photobucket.com/dfr49_pix

I had not used this lens for a while, but then this weekend, a spider decides to spin web outside my basement door, so convenient, tripod, camera, flash, everything at home and I just step out side,
uncropped for those who are interested, in cropping versus not cropping, I feel I got the composition okay on this so did not crop, but I would crop any pic if it makes a better,









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Brad Ross

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours prowling around my back yard...mainly seeing (and shooting) spiders.

All shots with Oly E-3, Sigma 150, EC-1.4, 1/320@f/16, ISO 200, tripod, off-camera FL-30 with Lumiquest softbox.

The first shot is a female spider (so far unidentified--perhaps a cobweb spider?) with spiderlings. She's about 3/8" (8 or 9 mm) long and has produced several egg cases in her nest which is beneath a leaf of a peony bush. One of her egg cases (above, left) has hatched out recently, and many dozens of tiny spiderlings cling to its surface. The mother just hangs nearby, upside down. She's really fat and I wonder if more eggs are on the way. Yesterday she seemed to be finishing a meal that appeared to be the remains of another spider, perhaps a male she recently mated with.



The next several shots are of a Jumping Spider (a Phidippus, possibly Phidippus toro). He's (I think it's a male) slightly more than 1/4" (6 or 7 mm) long. In the first shot he poses holding a small fly he's just captured.









Finally, I encountered a Yellow and Black Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia, also known as a "Golden Orb-weaver"). First one I've seen. It's a pretty big one--the body being about 1" (25 mm) long. It's head (thorax) is easily as long as the previous Jumping Spider. I need to look around for its web, which usually has a very distinctive pattern.



Phil

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http://pirose.zenfolio.com

Very nice set! Amazing eyes on the Jumping Spider!

Phil

Several butterfly shots taken in August. All shot with E510. Hopefully I recalled the lens combos correctly which are posted in the caption of each image. Thanks for looking.


50-200 and canon 500d close up attachment




35 macro and ec14




35 macro and ec14




50-200 and ec14



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David
www.pbase.com/bluesfish
If you can't make sense, go make nonsense. It's better than no sense at all.

Really nice spider shots. The Argiope aurantia is one cool spider. I found several recently at the edge of a patch of coneflowers. It was too windy to get a shot as nice as you did.

Real nice batch of shots. That mantis may look innocent but he is waiting for his next meal to land on the flower. Great expression!

Nice use of flash. It brings out the entire web and the spider too of course. I think your comp is good and I agree, I would crop if it improved the shot.