Finally found some of these guys to shoot. Of all places far and wide that I have been searching, I found two in front of our living room window this afternoon.

I'm taking some artistic license here as the first image is actually a second one.

...and two images after the meal.

Sorry I cannot reveal the particulars of these shots as I was trying several different things at once (one tube, two tubes, no tubes, pop-up flash, 430EX strobe,...). Only thing for certain is the lens - 300mm.

I was already late for an appointment when I first spotted these guys. So I didn't have any time to take notes.

Dang Loupey...those are fantastic.

Emily

Great series Loupey :)

Ok you got me on my knees. I GIVE UP. You are the master. I just can not hand hold any more and get good crisp images like these. (Might have a little to do with 58 year old eyes as well.) Beautiful series of images.

Wow - those are GREAT. Preying Mantis' are so beautiful.

Awesome pics, you captured them beautifully

them are amazing !! the mantis are around my area here but hard to catch a glimps of .. let alone catch one having supper !!!

Nice job. I saved a few in the last few weeks when clearing land, but no images in a month or so :wink:

Thanks, everyone, for looking and commenting! It was loads of fun watching these two hunt. They were hard to see among the hosta clutter. I was originally shooting hummingbirds and hummingbird moths (what else? :D ) amidst the hostas and noticed a lot of bees. Once I spotted these guys, I was milked it with everything I had :p

I shot a few more yesterday (a day after these were taken) for Payn's B&W thread. These two were still at it.

I love Manti , they look so alien.

Awesome captures Loupey

Wow Loupey....you SUCK. :p

I been looking for these for months, and you beat me to it. Nice series though.

Wow, great job!
I've only seen one mantis this year and I didnt have my camera with me! :mad2: :mad2:

I need to start listening to those hunches tellin me to take my camera with me :rolleyes:

got my wife hooked on the photogrphy thing as she is a bug person. i showed her your stuff loupey and she has to have a set of tubes now too. those and the teleconverters are the next purchases.

she took some pics of a mantis the other day i'll tery to post up tomorrow. hers was easier to find. it was on the tripod leg!:D :D nothing like these but we all have to aim for something!:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

you got me hooked and now you are reaching here. bet you didn't know you had so much influence. :D :D :D

WHOA!
I'll quote OT here: "I give up!"
These are incredible - I can say "Now I have something to try to attain" or I could say "I'll never get anything this good."
Reality tells me the latter.

Jaedon, Payn, Euphoria - thanks for such kind words. Euphoria, I keep a small camera bag (10D with 300mm attached, one end pocket with a 2x TC and the other end pocket with a set of extension tubes) in my truck virtually constantly. I have two locations near my work and one near my house that I like to "get lost in". I've found that I can "get lost" for about 2 hours before either my customers get mad or my wife :p

Terryger - that's great news about your wife! Hope she gets a PR account name here. Look forward to seeing her posts :thumbsup: I'm glad that we have been able to help you out. Photography is about as wholesome of an activity as one can get - albeit an expensive one if you let it :p

Coachgns -thanks for such nice words, but naw - its really not that hard. We can gladly help you here if you want to learn. As you can see by my number of posts, I tend to talk a lot. Or as my wife says, I "give a lot of unrequested advice" :p

...oh, I forgot. I wanted to post these two images from the previous series that I did not post.

Thanks again, everyone! Mantises rock!