Predaceous Diving Beetle

[Steve Maxson]

I captured this large (body 37 mm) Predaceous Diving Beetle (Dytiscus sp.) at a blacklight setup in my yard (interestingly, I have yet to capture one of these while netting invertebrates from shallow wetlands) and transferred it to my aquarium setup. I spent several days trying to photograph it while it was swimming and this image is my favorite so far. The small white areas on its underside appear to be protozoan colonies attached to its exoskeleton. 2.5 gal. aquarium setup, 1D IV, 100 mm macro, 1/160, f/16, ISO 200, 2 remotely fired 430EX flashes (manual mode, diffused), HH, AF. I removed some of the bits of debris in the water that were highlighted by the flash and ran nr on the background. At Jon's suggestion. and to add depth to the background, I placed a second 2.5 gal. aquarium behind the first which contains aquatic plants and has a cork board as a background. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Wow Steve, this looks amazing! And it won't surprise you that I love this BG :S3:. You could have fooled me by telling me you made this in the pond itself. Excellent work!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Steve this is FANTASTIC! brilliant focus, detail and exposure, a credible background, this may sound as if I am never satisfied but is the front aquarium perfectly clear water? If so I would add a very few contaminants.
This is amazing can't wait to see more... and more. I am going to do something similar soon. Congratulations.!!!!

[Mitch Haimov]

My first thought when viewing this image was "Wow, Steve, this one's amazing!" Then I scrolled down and saw that Jerry's comment is nearly identical. So it must be true. :5 This could be a Wildlife Photographer Of The Year contender--and wouldn't it be cool for insect image to win that! Light, exposure, sharpness, detail, BG all perfect. Love those feathery legs! The BGs on previous posts never bothered me, but this one is so much better. Hard to come up with ways this one could be better, but perhaps a little more room top and right (and perhaps just a bit less bottom and left) to move the face out of the center could improve on an already fantastic image.

[vishaljadhav]

Lovely focus and i love the way the details look here, backlit works best here to expose those legs and details on it
love it
i am still struggling to get underwater images, managed only a few videos with my go pro :)

[Gabriela Plesea]

Congratulations, Steve! Amazing find! Love the lighting and exposure, so much detail, stunning!!!

Kind regards,

[Steve Maxson]

Thank you for your comments, folks!

Jon - As much as I try to keep the water in the front aquarium clear - it isn't (even after the aquarium has been freshly cleaned). When swimming around, these large beetles do a great job of stirring everything up. Much of this material shows up in the image as bright pinpoints of light due to the way the flashes hit them - distracting and not very attractive, IMO - so I remove most of those (at least in part, this is a matter of taste). I would guess that most of the debris still visible in this shot was in the first aquarium. :S3: