keeganm.com

A weekend full of spiders

Argiope in Web

This weekend was full of finding and photographing spiders. I spent Saturday morning at Mark Ost’s house in Back Bay. Mark and I spent a few hours looking for various insects and spiders, but we located a section of his yard containing many Salticids. I spent most of my time there.

We did find a few other types of spiders, like this beautiful Argiope to the left (click for full size). I believe it is the common Argiope aurantia, but it lacks the yellow coloring. It might be a juvenile.

I also spent some time at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens on Sunday, but I was less successful. I found one beautiful jumping spider with an iridescent green back. I’ve never seen one like this before. He was very attracted to the white lens diffusers on my camera flashes, and jumped on them at least a dozen times during the half hour I followed him.

All photos taken with a Canon 5d Mark II, Canon Mp-e 65, and the Canon mt-24 ex twin flashes.

Argiope in Web

I’ve never seen a jumper with an ant as prey, but I found a few different instances of it.

Jumping spider with ant prey

Same spider as above, at around 3x magnification

Different species of jumper, also with and ant for food

Profile of above spider

Natural light, no flashes used

Jumper on my finger, 4x magnification (very small spider)

The next three photos are of a jumping spider as found at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. Note the beautiful green coloring, I’ve never seen that before.

I think this is a soldier fly

Tags: 5d mark II, argiope, jumping spider, macro, mp-e 65, mt-24 ex, spider

East Coast Star Party May 2012

Moonrise Party

This weekend was the East Coast Star Party in Coinjock, NC. Marking my third ESCP, I had a list of objects to hunt for, but most notable was M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, and also seeing the polar cap of Mars in my 10″ dob.

I prepared for a weekend of dark skies by renting the Sigma 14mm f/2.8 wide angle lens. I was pleased with the results, it is a fast, sharp lens with minimal distortion. On my full frame 5d Mark II a huge swath of sky was visible. I did attempt to stack some shots together of the Milky Way but they just didn’t turn out as well as the single shots. I used Photoshop CS5 to remove all of the power lines. It was easy and effective.

I came away with quite a few good Milky Way shots. Mark Ost and I went bug hunting again around the campground and found quite a few spiders. Great weekend of conversation and photography, as all of the ESCP gatherings tend to be.

Click a photo for higher resolution viewing.

ISO 3200, f/2.8, 30 seconds

Self portrait. I was blocking the moon in the exposure.

ISO 1600, f/2.8, 30 seconds.

On to the spiders. All of these were taken with My 5d Mark II, Canon Mp-e 65 macro lens, and the Canon mt-24 ex twin flash light. The diffusers I built are working wonderfully, I’m getting close to daylight.

Tags: 5d mark II, coinjock, macro, milky way, mp-e 65, mt-24 ex, sigma 14mm f/2.8, spider

Magnolia Green Jumper

Magnolia Green Jumper on my 5d Mark 2

Had a wonderful day of photography at the Chesapeake Arboretum this Saturday. Initially I didn’t see much, but I eventually found one section that was covered in bugs. Juvenile mantids and jumping spiders everywhere.

Below is a collection of photographs of one species of spider, the Magnolia Green Jumper, Lyssomanes viridis. Two spiders were happily jumping around one plant, so I took a ton of shots of them, enough to have a blog post dedicated just to them. These jumpers were absolutely beautiful, I’ve never seen one before. They were quite friendly — enough so to jump on my camera, and my finger.

Looking at me

Here she is at 4x

Tags: 5d mark II, jumping spider, macro, mp-e 65, mt-24 ex, spider

NW River Landing

I met my dad this weekend for a hike at the Northwest river state park in Chesapeake, Va. We found a large amount of swamp lilies, but I only had my mp-e 65, so I just shot bugs. I did get very lucky and found a cold dragonfly, who let me get close enough for some 5x shots.

All of these were taken with my Canon 5d Mark II, Canon mp-e 65, and the Canon mt-24 ex twin flashes. The light is pretty hard, especially at 5x. I need to heavily diffuse these flashes. The 16 layers of tracing paper doesn’t seem to do enough.

Dragonfly at 1x

Dragonfly at 4x

This next photo is a stack of two shots taken at 5x. Stacked manually with photoshop.

Dragonfly stack at 5x

Not sure what this bug is, i need to find my id books

Same bug as above but at 2.5x. I love those water drops

Tags: 5d mark II, dragonfly, macro, mp-e 65, mt-24 ex, spider

Breezy Botetourt Gardens

Mating hoverflies at 2x

Norfolk has been pretty windy lately. I’ve only been able to take a few shots the past few weeks. Even a slight breeze makes shooting bugs a real challenge. A great day of shooting requires almost perfect stillness, which is rare. I was able to snap a few fun photos in between gusts tho.

Also for the first time I’ve got a good quality photo taken at 5x! This is the max the canon mp-e 65 can do without additional gear. Shooting at 5x in the field is challenging even without a breeze. The image is very dark through the eyepiece, so what I end up doing is starting around 2.5x, then zooming in while moving my camera back. This lets me keep the subject int he viewfinder, but it takes a considerable amount of time. Couple that with skittish critters and a 5x shot is rare. But with practice more will come.

As with my previous posts, each of these photographs was taken with a Canon 5d Mark II, mp-e 65 macro lens, and the mt-24 ex twin flashes mounted on the lens, with diffusers attached. I highly recommend you click the photos (once one is open you can click the right side of each to scroll through them) to see the detail, especially in this first one.