Bugs!

My wife's work has here going to Madagascar on a somewhat frequent basis and her work with a nocturnal animal means I'm late at night too, without much too do.

I've really fallen into taking pictures of bugs, (mostly moths) If you just want to look at photos of bugs there is the new 2018 bug photos, and the previous album of 2012/2014 Moths. And of course my Madagascar Bug friend post who is my avatar.

The details in these animals can be really amazing with the amount of structure to the bodies and the antennae. I highly suggest opening these up to full size.

And the colors.

I do also like to try and get either side or "face shots" but the depth of field on the lens here and the lighting can make it more challenging to get a really good shot. I need to look into focus stacking someday.

Also on this trip I had some fun seeing how far I could push the magnification I could get. With the setup I got to the point that the image on the sensor was 10x the size of the object in real life and then of course zooming in the pixel level can reveal amazing details. So on the right the arrow is point to a small black dot, and that is all you would see with the naked eye. On the left is what the camera saw and if you open it up full size you can see the hairs on its body and the iridescent sheen on it's wings.

Other bugs were not as hard to spot. Hi there moth!

And some were too busy getting a snack to come over for a studio sitting.

It's an amazing place to go for insect life, right is a me and a large moth just hanging out while I wait for dinner and a local restaurant, and the right is what a insects you can get in 20 minutes with a sheet and some light bulbs.