Water Scorpion and close friends

[Steve Maxson]

Another shot from my 2-gallon aquarium setup. Water Scorpions are often parasitized by these aquatic mites. One looks like it has popped like a balloon. Being slow moving, Water Scorpions also make a good substrate on which other tiny organisms can attach and get a free ride. They also have a somewhat flexible 3-segmented beak which they use to probe prey items for an easy spot to begin feeding. 40D, MP-E 65 mm, 1/250, f/16, ISO 100, MT-24 macro twin lites, tripod. RAW file PP in CS3 - levels, curves, saturation. I removed many tiny specks from the water to clean up the image. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Another cool one Steve!!! Boy.....that's gotta' hurt! I have been wondering if that is the shadow behind the water scorpion?....being cast by the vegetation or the scorpion himself from the twins??? I get that sometimes with my BG's......so just a simple smoothing should do the trick for me. Great job on these and thanks for the info too!

[Steve Maxson]

I have been wondering if that is the shadow behind the water scorpion?....being cast by the vegetation or the scorpion himself from the twins??? I get that sometimes with my BG's......so just a simple smoothing should do the trick for me. Great job on these and thanks for the info too!

Hi Roman and thanks for your comments. In this case, the darker area behind the scorpion is OOF vegetation in the background rather than a shadow. I'm undecided about whether to leave or remove it. I'll be interested to hear what other folks think. :)

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Steve, another cool scorpion shot. I am okay with the OOF vegetation.

[Ken Childs]

With friends like that, who need enemies! :D

Another cool shot, Steve! I'm with Roman on the dark area in the BG....my eye first went to the head of the bug but then went to that area. The front arm crossing in front of the back one is a bit distracting but all in all, it's a great shot!

[Dave Leroy]

A really interesting looking creature. And who would have thought that even water scorpions have issues.

I had not noticed the darker area in bg until mentioned. Now that I see it, I think I would remove or at least tone it down.

Dave