Scorpionfly

[Steve Maxson]

This male Scorpionfly (Panorpa sp., Order Mecoptera) was photographed in my lightbox "studio." These are neither scorpions nor flies. The reproductive structures of the male resemble the "tail" of a scorpion - females have a tapered, but rather straight abdomen. These insects neither sting nor bite and are harmless. For food they typically scavenge on dead insects. 5D II, 100 mm macro, 1/160, f/16, ISO 125, 2 remotely-fired flashes, hand held. All comments are welcome and appreciated.



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[Patrick Sparkman]

Great shot of one of my favorite insect species! I like the clean look, and sharp detail, with the almost translucent looking body. The only issues I have are the antenna cross and the fact that it only looks like it has the legs facing the camera. The others must be behind the body but not really visible due to the lack of much shadowing.

Did you take this with your little portable "light tent"? I usually struggle to get a good shot of these in the wild due to the size being too big for my MPE-65.

[Steve Maxson]

[QUOTE=Patrick Sparkman;872218]

Did you take this with your little portable "light tent"? /QUOTE]

Thanks for the comment Patrick. I took this shot in a setup similar to the one in this thread http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/91878-Lady-Beetle-and-lightbox-setup My current setup is a little larger - it has a framework of 1/2 inch diameter PVC pipe and I simply tape sheets of white printer paper to this framework. The lighting and flash placement are the same.

[bhavya joshi]

Everything is Clean here.. Though It a Light box Shot.:) lovely Profile shot.. Thanks for sharing..

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Steve, I really like this image. Great tones and detail and I like the pose of the fly. Love those mottled wings with the amber body. Very well captured and presented.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Steve, excellent capture as always! I wonder how a lower angle would have looked. It would have given better separation of the tail and the wings, exposing the nice scorpion like structure at the end, but it would have hidden part of the wing pattern.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for the comments Joshi, Allen, and Jerry!

Jerry: The shooting angle on these macro shots is usually a compromise for me - and I usually try a variety of angles if the subject cooperates. I like low angle shots and one would produce the results you suggest - but it would also blur the ends of the legs that extend toward the camera as they would then be outside the narrow (even at f/16) DOF. As presented, I have tried to angle the plane of focus such that the DOF includes all of the legs and as much of the body as possible - which means shooting from a somewhat higher angle. :S3:

[Jonathan Ashton]

I have deliberately not looked at previous comments but will look after I have written mine.
As always carefully planned and presented, I like the angle and the lighting and the first class detail. I have never seen the reproductive organ "the stinger" so clearly before so from my point it is an exceptionally good image and it has enhanced my appreciation of the fly, we have them here in UK and they look very similar. My only slight reservation is the the left wing falls out of focus due to DOF, now usually this would not bother me one jot but for some particular reason in this case it appears a little distracting. As you will have captured a very high quality raw file I wonder if it would be worthwhile next time taking the image from a little further away to reduce magnification and automatically increase DOF.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Very nice and sharp! This one turned out great with the set-up.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hey Steve, I rarely visit here, but boy, there are some awesome images and I love this. Simplicity is key, but sometimes far harder to achieve, a cracking image.

You might like to look at adding a Luminosity layer and perhaps a little Curves to, just brings a little extra depth IMHO.

Must visit here more often, rather than annually. :bg3:

TFS
Steve