Stalking the Elusive Tiger

[beetleman]

Species Cicindela sexguttata - Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle.
I have wanted to photograph a tiger beetle for a long long time. I was seeing them at my boss’s house while I was mowing the lawn but never had my camera ready. This week, I was doing some painting, so; I took a walk around at lunchtime and spotted this guy. I got down real low and creeped up on him, and he did very well at posing for me. I couldn’t wait to get home and check them out. The third photo is from another specimen I spotted. I needed a face-on shot, so that is what I concentrated on getting with the second photo shoot. They are such a beautiful and powerful looking beetle. I was so low to the ground, I think my chin was touching the dirt . Pic #1 looks like a stalking photo. Notice the dark lifeless sinister eyes........

Program AE mode
1/60s
F/4
ISO200
Hand Held, full frame


Program AE mode
1/80s
F/4.5
ISO200
Hand Held, full frame


Av mode
1/50s
F/8
ISO100
Hand Held, full frame

[Gordon C. Snelling]

Very nice.

[McCluskey]

Great pics, esp. the 3rd one. The focus on the head seems spot on.

Did you try to make a print of these? I wonder how reproducible the florescent sheen would be on paper.

[beetleman]

McCluskey Wrote:

Did you try to make a print of these? I wonder how reproducible the florescent sheen would be on paper.

I ran right out and had Pic #1 printed at 8x10" at the local Walmart and the HP printer did a respectible job on the metallic sheen IMO (they tend to saturate the colors just a tad more than my LCD shows me). I give them to my children to hand on their walls...They love them

[karl-m]

What can i say......

Just brillient....now i know why your 'beetleman'.......!!

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

Awesome!

I still don't have a decent shot of these critters, they are very tough to photograph. I also like the third shot here. Excellent stalking and photography.

[salden]

This is one shiny bug . Good capture, as I can see how photographing this guy would present a few challenges.

[Ken Ramos]

Got to agree with everyone else there Doug, that last shot is a killer. I have never noticed these beetles being around here. They probably are though, I just have not been looking good enough.

[rjlittlefield]

Really excellent work, Doug!

I don't know about your tigers, but the ones around here are so goosey that it's a challenge to get closer than about 3 feet, let alone have time to get millimeter precision on the focusing. These things are amazing -- I swear they can get wings spread and off the ground faster than a wasp! In fact I remember thinking that's what they were, first time I saw them as a kid.

Beautiful color on these, and I'm happy to hear that the prints look good too.

BTW, I have seen written at several places that compared to wet-chemistry photographic prints, inkjet prints do a much better job with bright blues. Something about the gamut being wider in that direction. So the HP printer could well have been the perfect tool for the job.

--Rik

[Walter Piorkowski]

Very nice job Doug, never seen one before.
Walt

[PhilH]

Super shot. You sure get some colourful beetles over the pond

[beetleman]

Thanks everyone for your great comments. In my experience with tiger beetles, this species seems to be the easiest to approach. Most tiger beetles (like Rik stated) are very hard to approach. I remember when I was younger, to find tiger beetles you had to look down the path about six feet ahead of yourself so you could see them fly away just to spot them

[crotermund]

Nice shots, Doug. As a fellow tiger beetle stalker I can only imagine you slowly sneaking up on him saying to yourself, "Please, please, please just stay there a few more seconds...." They are always an exciting find.