Predatory Insects around my Bonsai yard- MACRO/MICRO

[Mitchell]

Hi all!

Thought some might like to see some macro shots of insects taken around my Bonsai yard.
I have always held great interest in natural insect predators and have tried to use them as constructively as possible to my advantage.
I move all predators into my yard and allow them free rein. I have bred/breed many types of ants from inch long brown bulls, to microscopic species. These are both in formicariums and inside my bonsai, I use them to remove dead rotting wood and create natural sharis. I put out wasp attractant bates, but not in the bottle to kill them, I spray it on my plants to encourage them to come into the yard.

I have also had great success breeding several Jumping spider species and releasing them back into my yard. I put out wasp attractant bates, but not in the bottle to kill them, I spray it on my plants to encourage them to come into the yard.


Feel free to add your shots of insects from your yard, they do not necessarily need to be predators, perhaps even prey.

Any comments regarding the use of predator insects to control problematic insects would be appreciated.

[Mitchell]

And some more...

I have have spent countless hours sitting interacting at close quarters, with spiders and have no fear what so ever of them. Many times have I caught a Golden orb on my face, it doesn't phase me, I just let them crawl off, I don't even react anymore.

Jumping spiders are my passion though. They are very intelligent and extremely inquisitive. Initially they may jump away from you, but pick one up a couple of times and let it have free run on your hands and it soon enough will behave like a dog. If you don't hurt it, it will want to stay with you, put it down on a leaf and it will jump straight back onto your hand. Point a macro lens at it and they will run up to check them selves out in the reflection, problem is they are too inquisitive often leading them to crawling onto the lens to explore it. They are one of the few spiders varieties that have enough movement in their segments to articulate there heads whilst keeping there body segment in the same position. This means they can view 360 degrees by tilting their head, adds another aspect to the interaction with you. Click above them and they will look up, tap next to them and they will run over to see what is going on, feed one and you'll have a friend for life.

[Greth]

Just gorgeous pics, Mitchell, how I wish I could figure out my camera so well! Brilliant work, almost tempted to nick one of them for my background...

[Mitchell]

Here's an interesting shot. An absolute fluke of photography.

Usually when shooting macro photography we rely on what is known by some as the "rockin' focus". Using a DSLR camera DOF is locked, and we achieve focus on the insect etc, by rockin' back and forth on our heel moving the DOF across the subject. The DOF or Depth Of Field is only a few mm's thick unlike when shooting normally, the DOF is as large as 1m. In this shot I was trying to achieve a clear shot of the Dragon fly, which I got, among them though I noticed this shot, where I had obviously rocked forward too far and put the DOF mid insect not of the top of it.

Oddly enough I managed to capture an extraordinarily clear shot of its Cervix or neck if you will.

There's a shot of him head on as well.

[Mitchell]

Greath,

Do you have a DSLR camera? A point and shoot? An old DSLR / SLR 50mm lens? A magnifying glass? There are many easy ways to get "Macro shots".
Some of my highest mag shots were done, with a Digital point and shoot camera and a reversed 50mm lens. I have also got decent shots, just using a simple magnifying glass in front of the lens.

Feel free to pinch one, I'm searching sites I posted on a couple of years back, dragging to drag off my photography, all these images I am posted were corrupted on a dual hard drive fail a year of so ago now.

Thanks for your comment.

[Mitchell]

Here's what I think was a horse fly.
It is an example of getting pretty technical with macro photography. As stated before, in macro you only have a thin sliver of DOF to play with. This only lets you focus on say the eyes, or the feelers, or the back, or wings, but the DOF is never big enough to get the whole head at high mag. This shot if I remember correctly is boarder line Microscopic. I am a man of little money, no flashy camera or $1000 macro lens. I have a simple DSLR 8 years old that cost me $300. I got cheap lens and found on google how to reverse them to get macro. This microscopic image is a reversed 50mm lens sticky taped on top of a 200mm zoom lens. This is microscopic, macro only involve placing a 50mm reversed lens onto another 50mm lens. The first pics of this thread are macro.


My hands shake from an injury years ago, I am persistent and have learned to adapt to it, I can shoot macro, no one can shoot micro free hand. Many in the industry use a thing called a slide rail to take multiple shots of the subject at different DOF, and paste them together to get an image with a larger DOF. I thought I could make it at home, but wanted to go further. So I built one, but added a low geared motor and a switch button. It can take shots at .5mm increments at a press of a button. All made from stuff lying around my home.



This is about 5 microscopic shots pasted together, 1 would of only revealed the whiskers partially in focus.

[Greth]

Mitchell, in times past I was an expert electron microscope photographer, unfortunately the skills dont translate very well to my simple camera! Wheres dat dam button when you need it, for 20,000,000 times zoom! if nobody breathes on 6 floors, we can eliminate vibration..
i think our camera actually can do decent macro, I just haven't read the manual enough to know how to master it. My bad, sorry but I will work on it!

[Mitchell]

This is my first ever Macro photography attempt. It was achieved by using a standard point and shoot camera and hand holding a reversed 50mm slr (the old camera type, everyone should have one in the closet somewhere) up to it. Not bad hey!

The Brown bull ant is another example of an insect which can articulate its head. It can look backwards over its shoulder at you. This guy was from a colony of about 500, kept in a larger formicarium. Once had about 10 go rouge on me, they are great pack attackers. They all moved to high places and jointly attacked me. They can see for over 3m and are smart, very smart.

If you take a good look at the shots, sorry once again, this was my first attempt you will note the amazing tines on the jaws for grasping prey, yet you will then notice the crescent shaped hairs running the length of the jaws. What are they for you may ask? To carry their eggs, cradled merely a fraction of a mm away from the tines.

[bodhidharma]

Not really much else to say ,except, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

[Mitchell]

Another example of unusual iridescence of a Lynx spider. I do a lot of night time macro, as many species are most active then.
It has always amazed me how, these little jumping species attract their prey. I mean they are in the dark, under a little leaf with infinity in front of them. There are a few good examples but not many of predators which live their whole lives "lying in wait" for prey. The success rate of an insect flying by in proximity seems unlikely, without a human light source etc to attract them.


I can not find references on the net or book, in regards the the phenomenon illustrated in shot. The Lynx spider simply does not "glow" neither to the eye nor apparently otherwise. What my shots suggests i'm not sure.

Here's a Youtube picture series illustrating the effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGhW5usURNM

[Greth]

For a first attempt, and even if it wasn't you have some great photos there!
I know good from bad, even if I cant do it myself, haha.
Print #2 and #4 out and make some special birthday/christmas cards!

[Mitchell]

Thanks Bodhi, Greth!


Speaking of Shaking hands and being persistent, here's something I put together which has got a bit of net publicity, almost 70,000 views on the article. I use to do a lot of DIY articles, this is just a simple moving counter-weight to offset shaking slightly. I used a tennis ball, 'cause we all know Americans love things made with tennis balls and called it iSteadii 2.0 as things with i's at the beginning are cool and 2.0 has to be better than 1.0. Wait a minute there was no 1.0...

http://www.instructables.com/id/iSteadi ... zing-Unit/

[Mitchell]

And another for shaky hands. A pistol grip I fashioned out of a garden trigger nozzle, and a bit of epoxy. Because of the shaking in my hands, if I hold them still trying to shoot for too long, the position your hand must be in to press the capture button on top of the camera causes them to cramp up.

This was my solution, camera can now be held one handed, without cramp up. This allows me to spotlight insects at night, then shoot one handed at the same time.
Plus it looks wicked cool!

[Greth]

I have worked at thousand times mag on a regular basis, all hands shake. Dont blame yaself if you can't keep totally steady. Best you can do sometimes is take lots of pics and hope one of them worked on a moment when there was no vibration. With digi pics, you can do dozens, won't cost a cent. An expert photographer is not someone who took a brilliant pic, he took 1000 and discarded all the not quite right ones.

[Mitchell]

I'm on my 6656th shot of this camera.
Normally take 50 or so shots, I don't have any problem with normal shots, just freehand macro. Though learning that, is an art form in itself. With a DOF of 1mm a shake of .5mm throws the shot out. That's where we revert back to the "rockin' focus", we rock back and forth snapping off shots trying to get one in focus. Try this on a moving spider sitting on a leaf that is swaying itself. It's kind of like a natural harmony, rockin' in time with the tree and spider.