BTW, how can one tell a wasp from a hornet from a bee from a yellow jacket? And which one is this?
Mike
Wasp with macro lens
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
Wasp with macro lens
Here's a stack of a wasp that I took recently. This is a ZS stack of about 50 images taken with a Tamron 90mm macro lens fully zoomed. I used diffused external flash, camera flash, and a soda can reflector. Getting better, but I hope to figure out how to get the compound eyes to come out better. I cropped off some empty space as well as the bottom of the picture. The needle that was holding the subject in place got in the image and my PS skills could not get rid of it.
BTW, how can one tell a wasp from a hornet from a bee from a yellow jacket? And which one is this?
Mike
BTW, how can one tell a wasp from a hornet from a bee from a yellow jacket? And which one is this?
Mike
Here, I got my wish for the compound eye. I added 68 mm of AF Kenko Extension tubes. I didn't go deep enough to get both eyes, but I think that the left eye came out pretty well.
I tried to go back and finish the stack after I saw the missing depth, but my camera reels in the lens when the power is turned off. When I finished the series and tried to stack it, I just got a double image. I'll have to do the whole thing over again if I want both eyes.
Mike
I tried to go back and finish the stack after I saw the missing depth, but my camera reels in the lens when the power is turned off. When I finished the series and tried to stack it, I just got a double image. I'll have to do the whole thing over again if I want both eyes.
Mike
Thanks, Mogie. I've tried several, but Zerene Stacker seems to be the easiest and best. I literally drag the photos in, click two buttons, and this is what comes out.
Plus, you have some expert advice available on this forum (Rik Littlefield wrote the Zerene software).
Good luck in your focus-stacking trek. Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum. I've never seen a question go without an expert answer.
Mike
Plus, you have some expert advice available on this forum (Rik Littlefield wrote the Zerene software).
Good luck in your focus-stacking trek. Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum. I've never seen a question go without an expert answer.
Mike
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rjlittlefield
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scitch, thanks for the kind words.
The eye looks good. There are some advantages to having the farther back eye remain out of focus -- that way the viewer immediately realizes that the subject is small, instead of having to be told or figure it out. You have a fairly gradual transition from focused to OOF in this image, so it doesn't really look stacked. The stacking just makes a better picture without becoming an issue on its own.
All these things belong to order Hymenoptera, which also includes the ants. The large group called wasps spans many families with a wide variety of lifestyles. The wasps include yellow jackets and hornets, as well as paper wasps, mud daubers, ichneumon wasps (often parasites of large caterpillars), and even the tiny braconid wasps that parasitize aphids. Typically the term yellow jacket is reserved for yellow and black wasps whose abdomens are joined to the thorax with a short waist, as described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket. The term hornet is somewhat ambiguous. In casual usage it can mean any large wasp with a short waist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornet for a good discussion. Bees are a different subgroup of Hymenoptera, including several families and typically (but not universally) equipped with a "basket" of specialized hairs on the rear leg for carrying pollen. The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee is loaded with information, though perhaps not as concise as you might have wished!
By the way, a good reference for identification is "How To Know the Insects" by H.E. Jaques (and Roger G. Bland in later editions). Versions are available from 1947, 1978, and 3rd Edition is hot off the press from May 2010. Any of the versions would be a good intro to identification, though of course the later versions reflect more current names and sometimes revised thinking about how various groups are related.
--Rik
The eye looks good. There are some advantages to having the farther back eye remain out of focus -- that way the viewer immediately realizes that the subject is small, instead of having to be told or figure it out. You have a fairly gradual transition from focused to OOF in this image, so it doesn't really look stacked. The stacking just makes a better picture without becoming an issue on its own.
I believe you have a yellow jacket.BTW, how can one tell a wasp from a hornet from a bee from a yellow jacket? And which one is this?
All these things belong to order Hymenoptera, which also includes the ants. The large group called wasps spans many families with a wide variety of lifestyles. The wasps include yellow jackets and hornets, as well as paper wasps, mud daubers, ichneumon wasps (often parasites of large caterpillars), and even the tiny braconid wasps that parasitize aphids. Typically the term yellow jacket is reserved for yellow and black wasps whose abdomens are joined to the thorax with a short waist, as described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket. The term hornet is somewhat ambiguous. In casual usage it can mean any large wasp with a short waist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornet for a good discussion. Bees are a different subgroup of Hymenoptera, including several families and typically (but not universally) equipped with a "basket" of specialized hairs on the rear leg for carrying pollen. The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee is loaded with information, though perhaps not as concise as you might have wished!
By the way, a good reference for identification is "How To Know the Insects" by H.E. Jaques (and Roger G. Bland in later editions). Versions are available from 1947, 1978, and 3rd Edition is hot off the press from May 2010. Any of the versions would be a good intro to identification, though of course the later versions reflect more current names and sometimes revised thinking about how various groups are related.
--Rik
Thanks, Rik! I knew I'd learn a lot about macrophotography on this site, but I've ended up learning even more about entomology.
Speaking of bees . . . I know it's difficult to identify a species from a description, but I saw an interesting specimen on a hike recently. I took some great series to be stacked later and when I got back to the car to look at them, I got the "No Card" message!!! Why would it even let me take photos with no memory card?!? I had shots of grasshoppers, lizards, dragonflies . . . all gone.
Anyhow, I came across a pair of creatures mating. They looked like bees but without the rear segment. They were less than a cm and very fuzzy. One was brown and the other reddish-brown. Every time I took a step, they followed me without ever disconnecting from each other. Any ideas?
Mike
Speaking of bees . . . I know it's difficult to identify a species from a description, but I saw an interesting specimen on a hike recently. I took some great series to be stacked later and when I got back to the car to look at them, I got the "No Card" message!!! Why would it even let me take photos with no memory card?!? I had shots of grasshoppers, lizards, dragonflies . . . all gone.
Anyhow, I came across a pair of creatures mating. They looked like bees but without the rear segment. They were less than a cm and very fuzzy. One was brown and the other reddish-brown. Every time I took a step, they followed me without ever disconnecting from each other. Any ideas?
Mike
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rjlittlefield
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I figured that it would be very difficult to determine from just a description. The closest I can find is this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37013672@N04/3582634613/. But that's not the position they were in. They were end-to-end. Similar shape, similar color, similar fuzzines. I don't remember what the eyes looked like.
I'll have to search for that setting in the camera. It's not the first time I've done it and certainly won't be the last. That would save me a lot of frustration.
Mike
I'll have to search for that setting in the camera. It's not the first time I've done it and certainly won't be the last. That would save me a lot of frustration.
Mike
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Harold Gough
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Bumblebees mate at ground level, the male being much smaller than the female, unlike in hoverflies, where they are more similar in size.scitch wrote:I figured that it would be very difficult to determine from just a description. The closest I can find is this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37013672@N04/3582634613/. But that's not the position they were in. They were end-to-end. Similar shape, similar color, similar fuzzines. I don't remember what the eyes looked like.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/145985
Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.