Bugs and such

Important steps in the life cycle of this tiny (two-inch) lily, all in one picture!

. . . is the underside of the Luna moth. And I do not know why i capitalize "Luna" -- just seems right.

Still drying out from its transformation from a pupa to a gorgeous moth. And, of course, it's almost a full moon.

No idea what this moth's real name is; possibly Eustace or Edna or something. But when I saw it, at first I though a big piece of paint had flaked off of the door frame. Elsewhere, it might be a last-year's-dead-leaf moth. Or Eustace or Edna or something.

This is not an especially remarkable picture, and I am putting it up because of its instructional value: the almost nonexistent depth of field of the 105mm Micro-Nikkor at f5.6. Which is illustrated here pretty brilliantly, I think.

Macro in the wild is not as easy as shooting under conditions where one has control of lighting and subject -- but if you can get decent pictures where you don't have control, you can surely get great ones where you do (something not always understood, alas). This morning I was out playing around with the 105mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor (the manual-focus one) on a D7100. I've concluded that the only way to shoot this combination is on full manual, with the camera choosing the ISO. Depth of field requires at least f11, and the magnification of camera and subject movement require a higher shutter speed than aperture-priority would allow. This was shot at 1/200 and f16, which came out to be ISO 250. I would gladly have swapped a stop of ISO in exchange for 1/500 -- so I learned something from the experiment. That having been said, I love this lens!

A continuation of my experiment with the 105mm manual-focus Micro-Nikkor. Would have gotten closer, but the wasp had other ideas and I try to limit my disagreements with stinging insects. (Click on it to see it better!)

Tracking focus on a breezy day, hand-held, cluse-up, is a hoot. (Actually, there's a word I'd use instead of "hoot," but then the children couldn't look at the picture.)