Shield bugs

[GardenersHelper]

These were captured hand-held a couple of days ago in our garden using a Raynox 150 close-up lens on a Panasonic FZ200 bridge camera with KX800 twin flash, using f/8 (equivalent to f/28 for APS-C) at 1/1600 sec. The raw files were processed using a "one size fits all" batch process in DXO Optics Pro 10 to produce DNG files which were then processed in Silkypix Developer Pro 7, mainly using common parameter settings followed by cropping and output to TIFF. For the images in the first post I used Nik Dfine on the TIFF files to smooth out small-scale sharpening artefacts in the backgrounds introduced by the Silkypix sharpening, resaving as TIFF. I used Faststone Image Viewer to output 1300 pixel high JPEGs from the TIFF files. There are 1300 pixel high versions of these images in this album at Flickr.

Subjects have been very thin on the ground this year, both in our garden and at the nature reserves I have visited. I have not seen any shield bugs in the garden for several months. It was good to see them (still all rather small) on three plants in different areas of the garden.

1

0944 32 2016_08_19 P1280838_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

2

0944 33 2016_08_19 P1280847_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

3

0944 34 2016_08_19 P1280858_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

4

0944 35 2016_08_19 P1280853_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

5

0944 36 2016_08_19 P1280861_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

6

0944 37 2016_08_19 P1280871_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

7

0944 38 2016_08_19 P1280883_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

8

0944 39 2016_08_19 P1280882_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


Continued in next post ....

 

[GardenersHelper]

9

0944 27 2016_08_19 P1280933_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

10

0944 41 2016_08_19 P1280891_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

11

0944 42 2016_08_19 P1280901_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

12

0944 43 2016_08_19 P1280909_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

13

0944 44 2016_08_19 P1280910_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

14

0944 45 2016_08_19 P1280922_DxO10 RAW 01cP DNG SP7 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[plamen_gb]

These are just amazing, I love the shot with the little ones

 

[regen]

Super pictures. You are not the only one noticing how difficult it is to find insect subjects this year.

Regen

 

[Norkie]

Excellent quality

 

[G.K.Jnr.]

Very nice images Nick, with some fine detail.

George.

 

[FishyFish]

Great set. I like the last one best. There's something inherently happy about a shield bug's face, I find.

 

[Paul Iddon]

Super contrast on the colours m8 - worked very well.

Paul.

 

[ChrisA]

Wonderful colours and shots. Like Nige I love that last shot with the small one in it too. You are not wrong - there have been a noticeable shortage of sheildbugs about this year.

 

[Andrew Moore]

These are superb! It just goes to show that with the right frame of mind you can pretty much take what ever picture you need without going mad on a full frame with expensive lenses. They work beautifully and the colours are especially vibrant without being over the top and too punchy. I must admit that the processing steps in these lost me though!

 

[alfbranch]

Very nice work Nick

 

[hoftwi]

#2 & #10 are my fav, they all look great Nick

 

[Graham]

Fab shots Nick, i`ll that with the little ones in shot

 

[cruso]

A brilliant set Nick we'll done

 

[Emja]

Lovely creatures and wonderful colour and detail

 

[slt_roopan]

great set and fantastic shots.

 

[Martin England]

What great pictures love them.

 

[User.81858]

Pure quality again Nick

 

[GardenersHelper]

@plamen_gb, @regen,@Norkie, @G.K.Jnr., @FishyFish, @Paul Iddon, @ChrisA, @Andrew Moore, @alfbranch, @hoftwi, @Graham, @cruso, @Emja, @slt_roopan,@JustMe, @charlychuckchuck,Thanks so much for all the encouragement.

It just goes to show that with the right frame of mind you can pretty much take what ever picture you need without going mad on a full frame with expensive lenses.

I can go a fair way down that road with you - I am very interested to see what I can squeeze out of small sensor cameras, which is "more than you might think" some of the time.

That said, I think it is a case of "horses for courses". I use an FZ200 for most of my flash work with insects, spiders etc, and I use the FZ200 because I can get the best (as in "most pleasing to my eye") results with the FZ200. But for the same reason I use a micro four thirds camera when I (not very often) photograph very small animals. And I use an APS-C camera most of the time for natural light flower shots (and am still wondering whether to get a full frame camera for flowers), and I've only ever had success with birds in flight using a dSLR with phase detect focusing. There again, for macro-close-up work, even with my larger sensor cameras I prefer to use telephoto zoom lenses (with and without close-up lenses) rather than prime macro lenses (with or without extension tubes or teleconverters).