Two crickets and other items: First up, it was very good to see an old friend from younger days. I could easily find camel crickets where I was growing up, but around here they just...

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Two crickets and other items

Aug 17, 2020 00:06:29 #

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

First up, it was very good to see an old friend from younger days. I could easily find camel crickets where I was growing up, but around here they just did not seem to be around. But then in this one park here I see they are common under logs. This one looks to be in the genus Ceuthophilus.

Camel cricket by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

I’ve been trying to sort out the kinds of tree crickets that we have here. This one is probably Oecanthus forbesi-- distinct with its deep pigmentation. Right now an all pale green species is singing from the bushes in my back yard, and they will do so until the first frosts. I've been trying to get pictures of males chirping, but so far they don't want to cooperate even a little bit. It is vexing.

Tree cricket by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

I would pretty regularly come across these colorful caterpillars, often around goldenrod. They turned out to be very difficult to identify since there are several genera that it sort of resembles. But at last I know it is a caterpillar of the brown hooded owlet moth, Cucullia convexipennis, so-named b/c the moth has a “hood” over its head. We here continue the axiom that a colorful or weird caterpillar of a moth will have a drab adult stage. Of course this rule is very unfair b/c most moths are not colorful.

Hooded owlet moth caterpillar by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Next is a very handsome paper wasp. It is almost certainly the Northern paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus. This species usually also has brown markings, but they are variable and nearly black or even entirely black individuals are not unusual. The yellow face and curly antennae of this one informs us that this is a male. Funny, knowing that means I could pick this up without getting stung. But for some reason I still won’t do it.

Northern paper wasp by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
This species, widespread in the eastern U.S., is becoming much less common in many places b/c the introduced European paper wasp is out-competing it. I have a 'camera buddy' who goes out with me when he can. He used to do research on how the European species is displacing the native species in Michigan. I just now saw that his work was summarized in Wikipedia!

Finally, for something completely different here is a rather lovely slug. Now we have a BugGuide but not a SlugGuide, but I do think this is the dusky slug Arion subfuscus. Ironically, that is another introduced species from Europe.

Slug by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Aug 17, 2020 06:31:36 #

sscnxy

Hi Mark,
Once again, I admire your macro photos. They're so sharp and pretty in every way. I have 2 questions.
Do you do any post processing?
What is your lighting method and setup?

Your suggestions are always well kept. Thanks.

NMY

Aug 17, 2020 10:16:08 #

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

sscnxy wrote:

Thank you! For close up /macro I use the Canon 100mm L lens, and the above pictures were taken with the Canon t3i body (consumer grade crop sensor). The flash is the wonky Venus/Laowa dual head flash. The diffusers are a pair of Chinese instant noodle bowls, lined with silver cardstock paper from an art supply store. There are two spaced apart layers of that thin packing foam material that cover the front of the bowls, plus an extra strip of foam directly in front of the bulb in the flash heads. You can see the Exif data at the link. I try to photograph for background lighting, so I have to 'push' things at times like shooting at ISO 400, even though that adds noise in this camera.
I photograph in Raw, though I rarely take advantage of that (I should!). Rather, export as a big Jpeg and do Post processing usually in Gimp. I always crop to compose (sometimes a lot), and it really helps to use the G'Mic plug-in in Gimp to do de-noise. Then unsharp mask. Both of these at their default settings. Other post processing in Gimp that I commonly use is to play around with the shadows and highlights sliders, or maybe the curves tool. Export as a jpeg, reduced to 95% which really brings the file size down from 10+ Mb to around 3 Mb.

Aug 17, 2020 10:34:48 #