Assassin bug nymph

[shane shacaluga]

HI all

I have been away for a few months due to lots of travelling for work purposes. I am now back for some time so hope to contribute a bit more. Now that spring is here I have been looking for spiders that are out with the warm weather. Under a rock I came across what i initially thought was a newly hatched mantis nymph. As soon as I checked the first shot on the LCD screen i realised it was a Reduviidae nymph which I had never come across at this stage before. It did not stop moving so took about 20 shots before getting one where the eye and proboscis can be seen. Unfortunately the fine hairs reflected the flash no matter how much i tried to diffuse it

Nikon D800e
NIkkor 70-300 @ 110mm
f32
1/250
Raynox DCR 250 macro attachment
Using diffused NIkon SB200 external flash

Comments and critiques most welcome

[John Robinson]

Hi Shane
Wierd looking critter to say the least. Good camo too.
Smame Nikor lens as I have and I started using it on butters with a no 1 ext tube and was quite impressed. What is the DCR 250 ? I,ll google it.
I love that lens by the way !
Cheers
John

[shane shacaluga]

Hi Shane
Wierd looking critter to say the least. Good camo too.
Smame Nikor lens as I have and I started using it on butters with a no 1 ext tube and was quite impressed. What is the DCR 250 ? I,ll google it.
I love that lens by the way !
Cheers
John

Thanks John

the raynox works extremely well on this lens and your D7000. It magnifies too much for large insects like butterflies and you cannot use the in built flash but for small insects its great and cheap

[Nancy Bell]

This gives a delicate look to the assassin bug nymph, with the near translucent appearance and abundance of fine hairs. Good to have it on a solid substrate. I like both the dark bkgd allowing the details of the insect to be seen and that the colors of the insect and rock are nearly the same. Very interesting.

[Mitch Haimov]

Very cool, shane. BG works quite well, good use of DOF. And the subject is, of course, very interesting (and unfamiliar).

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks for your comments

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Shane. I haven't seen an Assassin nymph this fuzzy looking before and I can see where that would make the photography a little more challenging - though all the hairs probably make good camouflage for the nymph. I like the comp and background and you did achieve good sharpness within your limited DOF. I might have expected a little more DOF at f/32 - is this close to full frame? If so, you might have tried backing up a bit which would give you increased DOF - and then cropped more in post to get this same comp. Just something to consider next time out. Overall, this is nicely done!

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks a lot Steve

The nymph was very very small and had to magnify a lot. The Raynox on the zoom lens makes you get further away the more you magnify so i was having a really had trouble getting the focus in the eye/head area

Will try and not magnify so much next time and crop more. Thanks for the tip ;)