Young Cricket from today

[dpastern]

Took this earlier this evening, just before dusk. Was lucky to spot him. Particularly happy at nailing focus in the failing light on such a tiny thing (was around 8mm in body length I'd say). They have really nice body colourings when they're young.

Dave

[LordV]

Lovely shots Dave- great light and colour (and clarity) :)
Brian V.

[dpastern]

Thanks for the kind very words Brian :) I'm still not entirely happy about the flash hotspots, but not entirely sure how to combat them. Thinking of a layer of tissue or two between the sto-fen diffuser and the flash head...what do you think?

Dave

[LordV]

Thanks for the kind very words Brian :) I'm still not entirely happy about the flash hotspots, but not entirely sure how to combat them. Thinking of a layer of tissue or two between the sto-fen diffuser and the flash head...what do you think?

Dave

Think a layer of tissue or Kitchen towel would be good thing to try-
If you find you are wasting too much light like this might be an idea to try a more directional softbox diffuser.
Brian V.

[Bald Eagle]

Lovely shots Dave- great light and colour (and clarity) :)
Brian V.
I agree with Brian 100%, love the colors on this one.:D :D :D

[dpastern]

Think a layer of tissue or Kitchen towel would be good thing to try-
If you find you are wasting too much light like this might be an idea to try a more directional softbox diffuser.
Brian V.

I think I might just try this, I'll try the tissue first, then kitchen towel. If it helps get rid of the hot spots, I'll be happy. Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated.

Dave

[dpastern]

I agree with Brian 100%, love the colors on this one.:D :D :D

Thanks! I was quite happy with these shots, pity the two from more side on didn't come out well (OOF - my fault, poor focusing on my part).

Dave

[Omri Alon]

#2 is awesome :D

[dazzlebea]

Dave, now it's your turn to shoot these cuties :) Well done, even with the hot spots.

Have you ever thought about the lightsphere (Gary Fong's)? In my experience it diffuses the light gentler than the stofen diffuser.

[bandit 1]

Hiya Dave,
Excellent couple of shots, I love #2 the colours are great & the angle of the shot makes it look somewhat Unicornish ???
Cheers for now
Mark
PS. do you know any cures for Macroholisum withdrawal symptoms, I haven't been able to shoot & its only been 24Hrs since being camera less only anther 20 days to go Aaaaah, I have this great urge to rip of all my clothes & run naked round the village HELP ;-)
Cheers for now
Mark

[canonloader]

#1 looks like a unicorn cricket. Great clarity, love that shot. :D

[racketman]

good DOF, lot of detail of this tiny fellow; they are never that colorful over here.

[dpastern]

#2 is awesome :D

Thanks Omri, very glad you like the shots!

Dave

[dpastern]

Dave, now it's your turn to shoot these cuties :) Well done, even with the hot spots.

Have you ever thought about the lightsphere (Gary Fong's)? In my experience it diffuses the light gentler than the stofen diffuser.

I'll have to investigate this Bea - thanks for the very kind words! The thing I like with the sto-fen is that it's very small and compact and that makes flash placement easier when dealing with insects that are in bushes etc where you can't easily get a large diffuser into. This is going to be interesting...

Thanks for the kind words - I doubt that I'll be able to track the development of this Cricket like you did though :(

Dave

[dpastern]

Hiya Dave,
Excellent couple of shots, I love #2 the colours are great & the angle of the shot makes it look somewhat Unicornish ???
Cheers for now
Mark
PS. do you know any cures for Macroholisum withdrawal symptoms, I haven't been able to shoot & its only been 24Hrs since being camera less only anther 20 days to go Aaaaah, I have this great urge to rip of all my clothes & run naked round the village HELP ;-)
Cheers for now
Mark

mmm. Lock the doors, close your eyes and empty the mind of any macro thoughts. I know what it's like though Mark, my D60 that I originally had at teh beginning of the year had a faulty LCD panel and I had to send it back to keh.com for repairs - was without a camera for near 4-5 weeks and it was sheer agony.

Dave

[dpastern]

#1 looks like a unicorn cricket. Great clarity, love that shot. :D

Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for the ID, I'll investigate it a bit more!

Dave

[dpastern]

good DOF, lot of detail of this tiny fellow; they are never that colorful over here.

Thanks RM! Shot at the usual f11, was lucky that cos he was tiny it gave me more apparent DOF to work with. I tried to get as good a angle as possible for maximum DOF, but it was not very easy given intervening flower petals etc. Still, I managed OK and I'm very happy with these images. Hopefully you have a few colourful crickets float your way soon :)

Dave

[dpastern]

Post addition: Brian (and others), found out the reason for the flash hot spots - silly me has had my flash diffuser off my flash unit since Tuesday's photography class (duh me!!!). I need bloody well shooting. This also explains the harsher lighting in one of my other posts (Jumper today), where Bea commented on the flash harshness.

I really hate changing my camera settings, cos I bloody well forget to save them back. Last weekend it was my ISO rating set to 3200 (and a bunch of ruined shots), the past few days it's been just flash without the diffuser on it, and today it was a bunch of shots set to center weight average metering (still turned out OK thankfully) and also no diffuser on the flash. The 1D doesn't show the ISO rating in the viewfinder, nor does it show the metering system being used, both of which I think should be shown in the viewfinder.

Dave