Spur-throated grasshopper
Bee-like robber fly
I couldn’t find my macro diffuser when I went out to shoot this morning, and since I was trying to get out the door before some rain moved in, I just configured my bracket so the bare flash head was as close to the focal point as possible. This put it a few inches in front of the lens, so it probably had an apparent size about half again as large as in the position I normally use it. I was actually pretty impressed with the results. It could be that it’s just close enough to work well when it’s configured like this, though I was also shooting bugs in flowers for the most part, which might well have been acting as little miniature reflectors. We’ll see; it was definitely convenient to shoot this way, with no diffuser to keep from slipping after every shot.
This is one of the images I got, of a bee-like robber fly (Laphria, maybe thoracica?) who kept turning to watch me intently as I was shooting. It’s a perfect example of a bee-mimic, like so many flies: I thought I was shooting a bumblebee until I got a closer look at the head. The mimicry is defensive for many of them, especially the ones that look like yellowjackets. The robber flies are predators though, and I’d bet that their appearance lets them get close enough to their prey to catch and kill them. Notice the tubular mouth, underneath the moustache-like bristles? They stab with that. And though it’s not apparent in this image, their legs are covered with spines that keep their prey from escaping. Some of the larger robber flies can have a painful bite, and have been known to eat hummingbirds. Fun little flies.
Toxomerus marginatus
Other Bees
A male carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica) is dusted with pollen as he probes a flower for nectar. Unlike the females, he’s not collecting any pollen for food, but the dusting you see across the head and legs will pollinate other flowers he visits. You can tell it’s a male by the large eyes and the yellow color to the face.
You see these guys guarding their own little plot of air space from other bees, and they’ll commonly come buzzing over to check you out if you come too close, but they’re totally harmless as long as you’re not another carpenter bee. It can be intimidating if you don’t know this, of course, because these are big, heavy bees around an inch long.
Getting ready for spring
It hasn’t affected my excitement over getting a pretty decent macro, but I did identify the moth in my previous post as a Tineola bisselliella, i.e., the kind that eats wool. Yes, I found it in my bedroom. And yes, I do have some mysterious holes in a wool sweater or two. Oye.
The parts for my new bracket should come today or tomorrow. I ordered them straight from the manufacturer, so we’re not exactly talking Amazon delivery times here. It’s hard to be patient, because I have really high hopes for this bracket. In this design, the flash is mounted to the plate by an articulated arm with 1/4-20 threads on each end. The cost was higher than I’ve put into a single design before ($60 shipped), but I expect it to deal with two major flaws I’ve been frustrated by: flash wobble and limited positioning.
The first is a problem because as I walk around, the flash itself becomes unstable, and it puts a lot of strain on everything. Earlier designs would use a thumb screw that goes through the plate, which starts to slip pretty quickly; and they relied on a cheap creep-prone solutions to mount the shoe. My Vivitar flash’s hotshoe cracked because of this, and the screw mount on my shorter off-camera cord ripped right out of the shoe. This arm on this design connects directly to the plate and hotshoe.
It’s also going to be a lot longer than a cheap ballhead, with more points of articulation. I’ll have more range and control over where to place the flash, so not everything will need to be lit high, camera-left. I’m a little worried about the balance of the rig, but I’ll find a way to make it work once it’s in hand.
First bug photo of 2011
