I ran across this decade-old image recently while organizing files, and it resonates somewhat with what Mark Sturtevant has been doing with his wide angle Opteka. This image was made with a Panasonic DMC-LX3, a pocket camera of the era with a Leica lens (about 24 mm equivalent, I think) and a wide v...

A most impressive array of spiders, presented in interesting and well-photographed variety.

Leonard

An interesting study, nicely done and presented. I envy your array of optics!

Leonard

A very nice collection of flies. The sawtooth larvae doing a pole dance gave me a smile. Well done!

Leonard

I had seen this guy for a couple of days stretched out on the concrete and unmoving, maybe having gotten a too-early jump on spring. Thinking him perhaps dead, I picked him up and brought him inside to have a look. Not only was he very much alive, but in the warmer temperature and having been moved ...

Great follow-up of an interesting post. The stereo and last shot are most striking; the difficult work-flow really paid off on this one.

Leonard

My thanks to all three of you. My pre-posting evaluation was insufficient, and I am now quite convinced that this is an earwig, likely a young one.

I appreciate your help and comments!

Leonard

Rik, not a very good one, but here's what I've got. Same specimen.

Leonard

Coming across a brass hose nozzle partially imbedded in the soil recently, I tried to run water through it without success. A small dowel cleared the impaction, but to my surprise and dismay, resulted in a mass of highly active critters running around my work space. From a look at their representati...

The canopy of photography/processing covers a broad area embracing many specific purposes and uses. While not providing maximal nuance or a platform for comparative analysis, I can easily see how this type of image would serve the purpose for which you produced it quite well. Impactful, and nicely d...

Thanks, Mark. They did respond well to the backlit situation. Insofar as clutch-naming, it has just occurred to me that if a big adult nailed you with that military-grade proboscis you might be tempted to refer to the group as "An Abomination of Assassins", but I've always been a sucker for allitera...

_DSC2275WCDen.jpg People have long found it amusing and sometimes descriptive to label groups of non-humans with titles: A Murder of Crows. A Covey of Quail. An Ostentation of Peacocks. So what could we call a congregation of assassin bugs? A Homicide? An Assault? An Assignation? Having thought abo...

I very much like your first image, and am surprised that you got such a good result with direct flash without diffusion. I am not familiar with Akashi objectives, but in general an infinity objective requires a tube or intermediate lens whereas a non-infinity objective can be used without. The tube ...

An excellently arranged and attractive presentation.

Leonard

A very interesting collection, Mark. I particularly like the pirate and crab spider images. And we think the world on our scale is dangerous and chaotic--

Leonard