Small beetle

[davholla]

I have a small garden and although I am trying to make it more interesting (winter flowers etc). I don't get many new insects. Here is a small beetle that I saw for the first time the other day.
Tachyporus 3.36 Magnification size 3.4mm
Tachyporus by davholla2002, on Flickr.
Sadly a bit of reflection on it, I need to get some polystyrene in front of my speedlite to try to deal with this.

[Beatsy]

Nice catch. That is an interesting looking beetle. Where in your garden did you find it? Just wandering about or under leaves or something?

[davholla]

Nice catch. That is an interesting looking beetle. Where in your garden did you find it? Just wandering about or under leaves or something?

Under some old newspaper I had thrown out to create a place for creatures to hide under (it was too messy to recycle).

[GrayPlayer]

I have a small garden and although I am trying to make it more interesting (winter flowers etc). I don't get many new insects. Here is a small beetle that I saw for the first time the other day.
Tachyporus 3.36 Magnification size 3.4mm
Tachyporus by davholla2002, on Flickr.
Sadly a bit of reflection on it, I need to get some polystyrene in front of my speedlite to try to deal with this.

Something as simple as a paper towel of Kleenex will work for a diffuser.

[Lou Jost]

Also, I think you could reduce the effect of the flare on that image just by playing with levels and contrast and maybe white-balancing in post-processing. For example (I hope you don't mind my playing with your image; if you prefer I'll remove it):


Of course this has reduced dynamic range and some noise; best to fix problems in the lighting before rather than after taking the picture, but you do have some room to play in post-processing.[/img]