New Found - a Orange Long-horned beetle

a cute and beautiful beetle , but it harm the plantation .....

it move slow while I see them .. in group (Northborough, MA, US) .......





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liewwk beetle collection
liewwk 2010 US collection

New Found - Long-Horned Beetle in Love

After 2 years ++ in MACRO photography, this is my first time see a pair of Long-Horned Beetle mating in real life instead of pictures. it is wonderful found, and was should be one of my best found for 2010 .. so let's share it with pictures ... and HD Movie

1. keep moving around so I got green BG


2. and also brown BG


and a HD movie show how they never give up ... (@almost end of the movie)

A Beetle body full with Mites Again ....

It is common to see mites or parasites on insect body especially beetles .. and last year I do found a long-horned beetle with "a lot" of mites on it's body .. but last 2 days ago I found another beetle so call full with mites !!! It's body look full cover by mites and it move really slow (can feel it is pain) ... but how should I help ???


2009 - long-horned beetle with mites


the beetle full with mites


bigger picture view through here

let get closer to the mites (5:1 and non crop)


if someone know how do we help .. please suggest ...

How I shoot MACRO - MT24 with Difuser 2010plan01

was planning this and test with few similar option before but never got any good result. but then decide to share this even I feel this still having problem with my setup

why am I building a bigger diffuser
1. larger light size
2. softer light
3. my long MACRO len (SIGMA150) need better and larger diffuser (I need something work for both of my MP-E65 & SIGMA150)

so my testing make up of

1. pop up flash diffuser




2. styro foam bowl& Kitchen towel paper


3. final setup





sample output .. (sorry trying to get back the original setup but the beetle flew off)





(minimum PP done on above pictures)

based on last picture show above (my large diffuser is from right from my len and the small one is on left) overall the light diffuser better than my previous one (I personal feel)
but it create bad shadow after 3:1 which mean I lost 4-5:1 while using my MPE , think this could be over size of my big diffuser ... will try to make it smaller next round

special write for my gang .... Philip Wee

a gang of mine, asking for poison (wny am I using mt24) ... so while our last week outing in a reserve jungle we tried to shoot the same beetle (normally I stop shooting the long horned beetle... I just have too many of them) with same gears (canon 5dm2, mpe65...) except the light different.. I am using mt24 setup as below


and he is using my old setup as below


I am sharing this to him with minimum of PP and waiting for his post too to have compare ...

a portrait mode


a landscape mode


just hope he will post his ASAP .. and I will update his picture here



but let share my capture

he is replying this fast with picture

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4321311593_883c642c1a_o.jpg