Ctenucha moth in Laguna Beach, CA

[Bob Allen]

This is a day-flying moth, Ctenucha brunnea (it has no common name, other than "ctenucha moth" for all members of its genus). You can see its proboscis inside the flower of Comarostaphylos diversifolia, summer holly (a rare plant). The darned moths never sit still. Instead of warbler neck, I now have ctenucha neck ;7)

Shot as a horizontal, the L&R edges were cropped. Cloned out some harsh flash highlights on the shiny leaves. Converted a copy to sRGB, downsampled, saved as jpeg.

Canon EOS 5D, Canon 100mm macro lens, dual flash, handheld.

[Alfred Forns]

Fine looking moth and you did well with the shiny leafs and white buds .. they are tough

Lots of detail and like the texture Did well with the bg !!! I like head on views but this shows the beautiful uppers side so well !!! Excellent !!!

[Stephen Stephen]

Lovely colours on this moth Bob. Thanks for sharing.

[Julie Kenward]

Bob, what aperture and speed did you use? It looks to me like you could have used a boost in freezing the insect a bit more.

[Bob Allen]

Oh, I forgot to post that. ISO 100, 1/80 sec, f/16

Yes, more speed would've been helpful. I was with another biologist, on our way to search for a rare sunflower, so I didn't have the kind of time I would take if I were alone. I'm 6 ft tall and was on my tiptoes to shade the plant with my body while shooting. It was pretty much a lucky grab shot.