Preying Mantis pt 3 April/May 2020 Lockdown

The Mantis species are all growing , some faster than others.    The Dead leaf is still very small and slow ,whereas the Orchids and , Giant Rainforest and  Stagmatoptera are growing fast!    its hard to keep enough food for them at times .  I now have a Wide armed mantis (Cilnia humeralis) and two spiny flowers (Creobroter gemmatus)


Firstly the Orchids , they have become Adult.  They get their wings in the last moult which is always a dangerous time, they need added humidity to prevent mis moults and damaged wings that don't expand properly.   

                                 Male Orchid  21 frames focus stacked canon 5dsr  100mmL

The female is sub adult, the wing buds are very clearly visible and it wont be long before she becomes adult.  Here is the old moulted skin next to her.









                                                                 23 frame focus stack.

April 22 now , I decided to shoot one on an actual Orchid flower , had to use a tripod for this, something I rarely do for macro.    Natural light and the 100mmL macro lens





                                   Single frame ,  almost ready to moult to adult.




May 24 th , she has moulted successfully overnight , I have waited a few days before taking her out to photograph , all her legs and wings needed time to harden properly.

                                    17 frames handheld focus stack , 5dsr  100mm L






                                                         And on black , 9 frames.

                                                The final Adult Orchid mantis 

                            Hymenopus Coronatus

                                                  Fabulous to see her as adult at last.


                                        Pre Sub adult female Stagomaptera femoralis









As a comparison , here is the female Giant Rainforest mantis, shorter ,wider abdomen ,more stocky and with a larger head .








                     Stagmatoptera   Sub adult female     12 frames handheld with the mpe-65 lens






                         and as a comparison   Hierodula majuscula    Giant Rainforest mantid
                                                               16 frames mpe 65





Now for the two new species ,   this is Cilnia humeralis l3. already at this small size feeding on a greenbottle ,  very aggressive hunters!











                            Portrait at x4 magnification  mpe 65 lens    20 frames focus stacked





Here are the flower mantis ,Creobroter gemmatus  ,  only a very small species just over 1-1 1/2 inch as an adult.   this is about 1 cm in length  30 th April










May 5th and they have just moulted , changing colour now and are pre sub adult with tiny flat wingbuds now showing.

                         May 15 th and they now look like this , up to about 15- 20 mm in length.





                                                         So cute , with loads of character





                                                And now up to date at the end of May

                                                    5 frames focus stacked portrait.







Almost forgot , the Cateye mantis ...............

                                           30 frames handheld  100mm L macro




                                              10 frame focus stack handheld. mpe 65




Still in lockdown at end of May , hopefully we will be able to start getting out a bit more soon.

Mantis shooting under Lockdown Feb - March 2020

The world is in Lockdown due to Coronovirus!   its like something out of a sci-fi movie !  virtually all shops and businesses closed and we can only go out for one walk a day or to go food shopping.


Its lucky that I decided to start keeping Preying mantis again as it has given me something to do while we cannot actually go outside, except to walk the dogs!

Here is the progress of the Mantis I started shooting in the last blog,  unfortunately the pair of Thistle mantis have died, and they where probably going to be the most interesting to photograph.   Any how starting with February and the small mantids have moulted and got a bit bigger.


This is my set up,  a simple light tent for additional lighting on the backgrounds,   glossy white photographic printing paper and yellow or pale brown backing sheets to prevent black backgrounds.  and a shiny black wall tile for reflection shots.

                           This is a Stagmatoptera femoralis feeding on a tiny fruit fly.
                                   Still only about 10 mm in length at this stage

This is a male Orchid mantis portrait,  19 frames focus stacked shot with canon 5dsr and mpe-65 macro lens.  a 430 ex standard flash gun off camera with two mini ball heads to adjust angle and a home made diffuser made from polymorph plastic .

This is my set up , the mpe-65 extends quite a lot so I can move the flash bracket and ballheads to keep the diffuser as near to the subject as possible. usually 2-4 inch     my diffuser was made specifically for use with this lens,   but works ok with the longer focal length of the 100mm for indoor studio type shooting like this .

                           17 frame focus stack of the same male on the black wall tile.

                    You can see the wing buds on the body now, will be adult soon. still tiny in comparison to the females which will be huge in comparison.

                This is a Dead Leaf Mantis,  Deroplatys lobate ,  5 frames focus stacked  mpe 65

This species seems to have much more pronounced detail on the eyes compared to many other species.

                           A natural light 13 frames with 5d mk2 and 100mm L macro lens

                                20 frames Orchid Portrait  mpe 65 at about x2.5 magnification

The frames , each with a slightly different focal points are stacked in Zerene stacker software, which produces a final image with much greater dof than a single frame could do.

     Now to shoot the newly moulted  Female Orchid mantis,  17 frames focus stacked natural light, 5dmk2 with 100mm L on tripod.   No wingbuds showing yet, so she will be pre sub adult next moult.

                                                      23 frames in this natural light image.

Moving forward to mid March , both Orchids have moulted again, so are getting to around 1 inch in length now . Small wingbuds are now visible so she is a pre sub adult, next moult the buds will become much bigger ready to form the adult wings.

  Using a yellow card behind the Glossy photo paper I try to get some images of the female with the yellow background.

                            All shot with 5dsr and 100mmL lens with the flash. handheld focus stacks.

                                                                     21 frames

Just the white glossy paper in this image, using the fallout from the flash which does not reach the behind to gradually darken the background in a gradient.

                                                                              11 frames .

This is one of my favourite images I have shot of this female,  36 frames handheld to get the entire insect in focus.

Note she has lost the clasper on her front right leg, which maybe a problem for next moult.

                                    Now to try on the black wall tile for some reflections.    
                                                 28 frames in this image f7.1 iso 100mm
        which are my standard settings for the mpe , but forgot when I changed over to the 100 mm , with less magnification you can use smaller aperture to get a little more depth of field , f10 to f14 without any diffraction softening.

                                                  Now with the mpe-65 lens , 22 frames f7.1

          Classic pose , 20 frames , they are getting too big to get the full reflections in now,  and i have been unable to get a much larger black glossy tile!

          I will finish off March images with my Giant Rainforest,    Hierodula majuscule feeding on a greenbottle.

10 frames focus stacked , was very difficult with the mantis moving constantly while munching !

                                                                         Single frame f14

              Next blog will be Aprils continuation of their growth as they become nearer to adult.

Preying Mantis Macro shooting Jan 2020

 I have decided to started keeping Preying Mantis again , they make superb photographic subjects and  Macro is one of my favourite styles of image making, very technical and fascinating at both taking and editing the final images. It must be about 8 years since I last kept Mantids.

I ordered four different species from Mitch at Unseen Universe website, and I even got an extra few nymphs.   They are all l2 to l4, so very small at the moment, between 12 and 18mm in length.  Its a real challenge to shoot their portraits at this size ,using the mpe-65 macro lens between x4 and x5 magnification and focus stacking to increase depth of field.

This is my set up, a fold up light tent with led lights which give good light for focusing and to give good light behind the subjects so flash falloff doesn't produce a black background which I don't like, unless specifically wanted for certain images.

Using a large piece of bark for the mantis to stand on, I try to get them to stand near the end so i can get the lens really close at eye level , at x4 magnification focal distance is about 1.5 inches . I rest the lens barrel on my left hand fingers, and then slide my hand on table to keep very steady and shoot a series of frames each with a minute difference in focal point.  These images are then combined in Zerene stacker software to produce the final image with much greater depth of field than a single frame can produce.

       This is a Thistle Mantis , Blepharopsis mendica about 12 mm in length, shot at x4 magnification  f7.1   iso 100   1/200th  , 6 frames focus stacked .

Here is the same mantid , shot on a piece of yellowish coloured card,   Canon 5dsr with 100mm L macro lens ,  again sliding my hand on table to shoot 27 frames, starting with the nearest foot and taking frames focused progressively through the subject to the furthest side from me, and then shooting another series from the back to the front, hopefully to cover any areas i missed in the first series.    Yes there will be slight movement of the legs ect, but that is easily edited in Zerene software using the retouch tool.  The flash diffusion needs to be fairy efficient so the recycle time is very short between each frame taken, so I can quickly shoot what I need before the subject moves too much.  waiting for the flash to charge between frames ruins the series, so batteries need to be freshly charged frequently.

Managing to get this one sitting on the end of the bark, I can get a couple of images while it stayed almost motionless. This image is just 3 images at f7.1 , I did shoot a 32 frame series but there was just too much movement to combine the individual frames.

                    A portrait shot at x5 magnification, 17 frames at f6.3  Shooting at these  higher magnifications I always use either f6.3 or f7.1 aperture , any lower and diffraction softening occurs.
Sliding my hand on the table, using a focus point in the viewfinder on a easily recognisable part of the head, I can make sure most of the frames are almost aligned.

Here is another species, Stagmatoptera femoralis , I am going to shoot this one on A4 size glossy photographic paper to try get a reflection, using a piece of yellow card behind for background colour, the join will blur out due to the shallow depth of field I get shooting a small subject and a decent distance behind the subject with an aperture of f8.

        The finished image, only a single frame  , as this specimen was constantly swaying side to side.
                                                         Shot with 100mm L macro lens

This is a Dead leaf mantis ,  Deroplatys lobate .  Perched right on the end of the bark so I could get the lens level with the head, this is just 5 frames focus stacked, shot at f7.1 , enough to get both eyes in focus.
The out of focus bark has produced a nice background in this image.

This is a  Orchid mantis, one of the most beautiful of all species, fist a single frame shot on the yellow card, I didn't quite get the correct angle as the background has darkened near the top.

         And sitting on the bark , this is about 8 frames focus stacked .

Now i am going to shoot a female Orchid mantis ,and try to get a reflection directly under it using the black granite kitchen worktop.    I am using the light tent behind to the right and my diffused flash on the left.   I will have to take a large number of frames to be able to get both the mantis and reflection in focus, as long as it will stay almost motionless!

                     I managed over 20 frames before she moved,   enough for this image.

  This is a single frame shot with 100mmL macro lens , it is too big a subject even at this small size with the reflection to use the mpe-65 lens!

                              A portrait, 3 frames focus stacked at f7.1 with mpe-65 lens
                                       Best I could get as she was not standing very still!

       

The other female has just moulted so I will try a reflection shoot again, should be easier now she is a bit bigger.  A bit more colour than the smaller specimen.


This is the final reflection image,  15 frames focus stacked with 100mm L lens shot in portrait at f13  with flash on left side and back lit from back right with the light tent lights.  It is very hard to prevent the whites blowing out shooting these against a dark background. Again I rested the lens barrel on my fingers and slid hand on the worktop very slightly between each frame shot, front to back and then in reverse again to make sure all areas are in focus.  Frames stacked in Zerene stacker after initial adjustments to highlights in Lightroom. Finished off in Photoshop.

That's a great start to photographing the life cycle of these Mantids.