Sometimes home is a great place to take photographs because there is a wild jungle in the garden with all sorts of wonderful creatures contained within. Over the summer of late 2020 I found myself always taking a camera with me when I was out gardening or doing other things in the yard. I always wanted to be ready to take those fleeting shots of the amazing tiny animals that keep us company but we barely notice. Sometimes, an overturned clump of mud would come alive with life or a pruned branch would reveal an insect upon it. This led to a lot of random photographs that did not really fit in other posts so I knew that I would have to do a compilation to include them all. Over time I became fascinated with those small creatures and I find macrophotography allowed me to see them in far more detail than my eyes did. Sometimes they were not so small, like the truly amazing looking Twig-like Katydid at the top of this post. In the small ones, sometimes the shots revealed colours that we were not able to see, I became amazed at the colours in some flies. I know that insects and spiders are not everybody’s favourite subject but I find them fascinating and I hope that you like the photographs below.
More photographs and details available at http://bit.ly/311TI94
Severe Jumping Spider nicely camouflaged on a branch
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/14 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Black House Spider
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/14 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Bird dropping spider, abdomen pointing to the bottom left and legs resting against its head sloping up to the right, and its characteristic spiky egg-sacs
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/10 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite, nine shot focus stack)
Wrap-around Spider on the end of a twig
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 640, 100mm, f/14 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Comb-clawed Beetle
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Eucalyptus Leaf Beetle
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/13 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Blue Eyes Lacewing under a Cherry Blossom Leaf
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Geometrid caterpillar on a garden gate
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 400, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/100 SEC] three shot focus stacked)
Long-nosed Epidesmia
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/11 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Fine-waved Bark Moth
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 200, 100mm, f/10 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite nine shot focus stacked)
Twig-like Katydid on our fly screen door
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/18 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
How it looked once I accidentally bumped the fly screen while photographing it
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/18 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Mimetic Gumleaf Grasshopper
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Redeye Cicada resting on an oyster plant in the morning after shedding its nymph skin
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Cicada shells on a stone lantern among the plants being blown by the wind
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF40mm f2.8 STM [ISO 100, 40mm, f/14 and 1/8 SEC])
Clicking Ambertail on the shed side
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 200, 100mm, f/14 and 1/180 SEC] with Canon 430EX III-RT flash)
Sinister looking adult Crusader Bug, note the cross on its back
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/14 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Slender Ringtail I saw while cutting a dead tree
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 400, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/320 SEC])
Probably a mature male Slender Ringtail
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/180 SEC] with Yongnuo YN14EX Macro Ring Lite)
Pacific Reef Native Daisy taken with natural light using a reflector
(Canon EOS 6D Mk II with a Canon EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM [ISO 100, 100mm, f/8.0 and 1/60 SEC] with focus stacking)
