Macro season starts 18 th march 2012

On Sunday it was a nice sunny morning , so in between gardening i got my mpe 65 macro lens dusted off , and found a few willing subjects to shoot :D
By my pond i have a Choisia tenata shrub, which gets all the morning sun and the yellow leaves really attract the bugs  Yay
First subject was a shield bug

and at higher magnification , the mpe-65 gives a magnification of between x1 - x5  life size

I also spotted three species of miner bee visiting the shrub but just could not get a shot of one!

But a nice tiny cranefly was obliging, this one was about 15 mm maximum length! shot at x5 mag and cropped!!!!!!

I found a few ladybirds also

and  my best bug shot of the day, a Fly  lol.   i am definitely rusty, will take a few sessions to get back to normal standard  haha.

and another shield bug :)

I finished of with a high mag 14 frames focus stack of the centre of a pansy flower!

So, the macro season has started at last, it is going to be a very busy season :D

but have a lot more birding trips to do before hand :)

all shot with canon 5d2 and mpe-65 macro lens handheld