Insect life, the Garden.

[nomad]

Having only a tiny back garden, you may not expect I might not see much insect life but in this small space the Spring flowers were busy with some interesting insects. An advantage is that my garden backs onto a large wooded town Graveyard. I popped out yesterday on a sunny day to see what I could find. I was in fact quite surprised to observe the following. Especially pleasing was finding that the Bee Fly, Bombylius major was popping in for nectar. It was also a chance to try to capture images of these and other insects in flight.





Bombylius major is known to visit larger gardens and now smaller ones.




I have to add the English Name here, The Spring hairy-footed flower Bee Anthophora plumipes, the males are Brown, the females black. These are known as Solitary Bees.





Hover-fly. Species??





A species of Mining Bee, I am not sure which one, any ideas!!



This would be a good place to share images of insects that are naturally attracted to your Garden, whatever part of the World you live in  .

[weymouthent]

Hi Peter, The hoverfly looks very much like a male Platycheirus albimanus, the inflated front tarsus being a characteristic of most of the male Platycheirus species, with this species in particular being fairly common.

[nomad]

Many thanks for the ID Mick.

[mygos]

Amazing photographs Peter, Thank you

A+, Michel

[timmsyrj]

Excellent photo's Peter, that's either a very big lens and strong flash or the insects around your way are tame, I could never get that close to have time to focus and shoot before they flew off, I became an expert at taking shots of flower heads, insects having long gone.

[wollastoni]

Good idea Peter !

Very few insects on my terrace in Milano for the moment.
Only some beautiful Osmia bees who are looking for some little holes in my table and chairs to put their eggs.

Insects will arrive later when my plants will be blossoming.

About butterflies, last year there were many Cacyreus marshalli and Pieris rapae. Also some moths, mainly Noctuidae.

[nomad]

Apr 12, 2015 16:55:08 GMT timmsyrj said:

Excellent photo's Peter, that's either a very big lens and strong flash or the insects around your way are tame, I could never get that close to have time to focus and shoot before they flew off, I became an expert at taking shots of flower heads, insects having long gone.

Hi Rich. Thanks. No flash, just natural sunlight with a fast shutter speed. I never use a flash outdoors. I just lie in wait with a close up 105mm macro.  

[timmsyrj]

Lying around watching insects, sounds like work.
What camera do you use.

Rich

[mygos]

Apr 13, 2015 6:22:24 GMT timmsyrj said:

Lying around watching insects, sounds like work.
What camera do you use.

Rich

I think the camera is not all the explanation, and the observation's talent and patience of Peter are the main reasons for such good shots

A+, Michel

[timmsyrj]

Totally agree it's not all the camera but to get good clear focused shots of moving objects like insects without a flash to "freeze" the image needs more than your average camera, mine is a Fuji finepix S8400W, 16 megapixel Wi Fi bridge camera which set me back around £300, I'm guessing Peter uses something much better than that, the lens on mine is an f4.3 which I don't feel is adequate for live shots of insects, dead, set specimens it's good enough.

Rich

[nomad]

Thank you for your kind comments Michel. Yes, just patience is often the answer, you never know what might come calling. Rich, I use a standard SLR Nikon D7000 but the attached lens is just as important as the camera that you choose to use. For insects in flight, you must  have a high ISO number, but also have a good depth of field, which means for me, who does not use a  flash outdoors, plenty of bright weather. Yes it is hard work lying around the garden.   The real fun begins on photography field trips, of which I hope there will be plenty of this year.  I like to keep my field equipment simple, sometimes I see people  photographing insects with large tripods with cameras that have huge flashes on top. . Although they may produce fantastic shots, that kind of photography is not for me, especially as I always travel by train or bus and rarely by car. The lens size is a matter of preference, many that photograph insects, started with birds, and they have those long lens, but I prefer to get close in, so I like my 105mm macro. 

[timmsyrj]

Years ago I had a Minolta with a good macro lens, f1.9, 80mm that I used with a ring flash, brilliant for macro work on set specimens as you had no shadow, ok for field work but a bit front heavy, trouble was back then you'd take 24 or 36 photo's, send the film off to be developed and end up paying for 1 or 2 reasonable shots if you were lucky, nowadays with digital if you missed the subject you just delete it and carry on. Plus you can change ISO speeds to suit the lighting conditions on the day, back then if the weather went dark you had to use a flash or go home, unless you carried additional camera bodies with different ISO films loaded, very expensive.
I think the lens is way more important than the camera, the camera only captures what the lens sees, the better the lens, the more light gets through to shoot greater depth of field which is essential with macro work or else half the subject is blurry, flash is good for freezing the subject so in that millisecond you can get the wings stationary if you're lucky.
I look forward to seeing more of your photo's Peter from your field trips.

Rich