Aardvark, Scorpion, or Moth

[Patrick Sparkman]

I am going to need the help of some experts here. Obviously I don't know insects very well (I had a recent post of midge fly labeled as a mosquito), but it would be nice to know the name of this insect.

It has a long nose, and curls its tail like a scorpion. It has a stinger like end, but I don't think it uses it that way. It has beautiful spotted wings. Not real cooperative, but I chased it around for 20 minutes and managed to get a couple of good shots.

I added canvas to the right, and removed a distracting leaf on the right side. Let me know what I can do to improve the shot.

Canon 1D IV, Canon 65 MP-E, MR-14 Diffused, ISO 200, f14, 1/300 sec

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Patrick. This is a Scorpion Fly (Order Mecoptera, family Panorpidae). Males have the scorpion-like tail, but despite their name and appearance, they are completely harmless. Very nice sharpness around the head, thorax, and legs. I would wish that the DOF included more of the unusual abdomen, but with this lens, as you know, the DOF is very limited. Perhaps a slight move to your left in the field would have helped, but any repositioning would run the risk of losing DOF elsewhere. :)

[Christopher Miller]

That's one bizarre-looking insect, Patrick! As Steve said more DOF would have been nice, but it's no big deal since the head, legs, and thorax are all nice and sharp. I like the colors and the black BG. TFS

[Mike Moats]

Awesome critter, good detiails where they need to be, and yes a little more DOF would have been nice on the rest of the body.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Love the black BG, really pops the bug..............

[Norm Dulak]

Interesting critter!

I agree that more DOF would have been better, but it's good as is. One suggestion would be to saturate the green of the leaf a bit, to make it contrast more with the reddish color of the insect.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Patrick, this bug's a new one on me! It really does look like an aardvark! :D

In a perfect world more DOF would have been nice but that cool looking head is sharp and that's where my eye went immediately on opening this shot. There are a few flash highlights near the tip of the snout that could use toning down but overall this looks really good!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Patrick,
Great advice above and I too am in the more DOF crowd.....but will also try to give you another in the field option. I'm a huge fan of the higher ISO's the higher end pro bodies can achieve......so going to ISO 640 or 800 to allow for both some more ambient light and more DOF.....would be my first choice. You could also easily knock off a stop in SS for the same purpose.....as the flash will freeze most motion for you. I think if you approach the subject with thehighest setting to allow for more DOF and a reasonable SS......this won't be as much of an issue in the future and will allow you to focus more on just the comp. Just some thoughts to keep in mind when working in the field.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Patrick, these Scorpion flies are a fascinating bunch! As you remark, their wings are usually very beatifully patterned. This particular one reminds me of a Star Wars character.
Good advice already given, esp. about improving the DOF. I think this image would profit from being more bright and a little richer in color. I also think that the black BG is not very complementing for this subject. But it may be inevitable when using the flash? Nevertheless a very nice image.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. DOF is always an issue with this lens, since the magnification is so high. I generally use it at f14 to strike a little balance between DOF, and diffraction softening. The lens only goes to f16, so I only had a little more DOF available anyway.

I must admit that I have not "scientifically" tested the sharpness difference between the different f-stops, but I can tell some difference between f11 and f16 both in DOF and the f11 is a little sharper on fine detail. That is why I chose f14 as a comprimise. However, does anyone with experience with this lens, have information on what f-stop they use and why?

As for the background being black. That seems to be a personal preference issue, and will depend on the subject. Using the flash as full illumination and rendering the background black certainly isolates the subject, and gives some flexibility to get proper head angle without worrying about a messy background. In this case, it would have been difficult to render a background with color just by increasing the ISO. I think if I had increased it even to ISO 1600 the background would have still been fairly dark. Then I might have then had problems with the flash over-exposing the subject. I generally shoot with the flash set to manual power. With the ISO 200/f14 combination, I set the flash to 1/16 power for darker colored subjects. The minimum flash power is 1/64, so ISO 800 would be highest that I could go. Does the MR-14 go to even lower power if set to E-TTL?

So I could have gotten 2 stops more background brightness by raising the ISO. Next I could lower shutter speed to get more background. Again this presents a problem with blurring. Chasing bugs around with this lens on a tripod is difficult and not much fun, and I have not been able to get sharp images with lower shutter speeds hand held.

The best tactic would be use a blurred print close enough behind the subject to be illuminated by the flash. Again, no free lunch. You can scare the subject, and you have to hold the camera in one hand and the background in the other. I will start to work on this though, to get more images without the black background.;)

Any advice is appreciated.