New Collection – … Mayfly 蜉蝣 | Order Ephemeroptera 蜉蝣目

a surprise found while my last year trip to Terenggnu for Monsoon season shooting (a beautiful place for landscape)

Terengganu series

In the hotel room, we found some interesting Mayflies (very tiny ~2-4mm), beetle and soldierflies …but I was too tired to capture all but can’t stop to try my best to capture these Mayflies ….

and found nearby another good looking type … and not sure are both related

and also found the very interesting view in the Mayfly stomach ..

better view @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/liewwk/5490665262/

more Mayflies pictures

New Collection – Family Bombyliidae – Bee-Flies

A Bee-fly, Order Diptera (雙翅目) family Bombyliidae (蜂虻科) Toxophora sp.

quite common near my common macro area but always failed chase it …. as it is too tiny (~2-4mm at long) ….

I was lucky last week to have it with some dews too and I was using my SIGMA150 F2.8 that time so no problem to get few shots before it flew off …

and with FULL ET + 1.4TC + ~some crop

and thanks admin and member of www.diptera.info for the ID

more Fly Series | Diptera 雙翅目

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liewwk/sets/72157605352673898/with/5473302131/

New Collection – Family Ascalaphidae – Owl-flies

Not really a rare one but this was my 2nd time see it in my country …. and should consider a rare insect for myself ….

and this was under same order with my belove lacewing (Order Neuroptera) that’s why I saw some lacewing eggs around the area … but it belong to owl-fly instead …

this is a bug rest a lot .. but not easy to look for it as it can quietly fly near by you but as long as you found it , it allow you get close to it … even at night torch light can direct to it for minutes it will still stay still … a beautiful and good macro model

a collection of Owl-flies

How I PP MACRO pictures – making gif animation

Every macro shot that I shoot, I trying my best to get few focus shot to increase my MACRO picture DOF which previously discuss how I stack it @ How I increase MACRO DOF . Because of that, I always shoot few shots before I stop and while I am shooting I will not leave the insect but keep monitor them… some time, they will so some action which may attract me to capture the action to make it as an animation to show …

And one of very early day share

another Tiger beetle

How Young Tiger performance
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2750/4066074743_9d5ab59482_o.gif

How mature Tiger performance
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2779/4066071239_5f6aaf5a87_o.gif

and … this is 😀
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2427/4066076445_03b911fc6b_o.gif

Let me share how I make my gif file… there are many software can make that but I use only Photoshop to create the animation gif file …

1. load the file into stack

2. if you doing this with full size it need a lot of memory to work on .. so normally resize before load into single stack. it will align the pictures …

3. crop the main object so all the picture in same size and same location

4. from the left panel (layer) save file by file with the new orientation and size

5. after save all the file , load it again into a stack

6. click on Windows –> Animation

7. from the animation window, choose all the files, or re-order the files. highlight all then choose the time for each picture to appear

8. save as web, choose gif file … then the gif file animation is ready

and my final result

New Collection – Ant-mimic – Male myrmarachne

just another add-on for my ant-mimic collection … this ant-mimic seem to be mimic Tetraponera rufonigra ant…

as usual this spider found near where the ant that it mimic , and quite active which need alot of patient to be capture …

some other ant-mimic previous share

… another Ant-Mimic Crab spider – 蟻蟹蛛 …

Black Ant-Mimicking Jumping Spider (Myrmarachne)

Ant-mimic jumping spider | 蟻蛛 (male)

Ant-mimic jumping spider | 蟻蛛 (female)

more spider from my collection