Family time all weekend. Took the opportunity Saturday to give my son on some hands-on photographic pointers around the house.

Also gave me the chance to try out the 180mm macro (which I still haven't given a good workout and stays at home all the time :( ). Nice difference between using this lens (over my preferred 300mm with tubes) is that the closer focusing distance allowed me to push the lens barrel through the obstructions rather than trying to find an existing hole to shoot through. The other noticeable difference is that since the focusing ring rotates more at close distances (i.e. more precise) on the 180mm, I couldn't track and follow the flying stuff as easily.

These are all my shots (don't know if my son will allow me to post his :) ) with the 180mm lens.

Glad I don;t live in your house with all those bugs :lol:

Great photos

Roger

Loupey, is that a crab spider (midway down)? I would love to get some shots of these, can you give me some info on your experiences with them?

Glad I don;t live in your house with all those bugs :lol:


The crazy part is that considerable time/effort/money was spent on our landscaping/deck/backyard earlier this year to get it that way :p :crazy:

Thanks, Roger.

Loupey, is that a crab spider (midway down)? I would love to get some shots of these, can you give me some info on your experiences with them?

Yes. Best way is to look straight down into the center of flowers and look for them hiding. You can spot some on the bottom side of the flower by looking for legs sticking out around the petals. The ones I see are smallish (size of a pencil eraser). Look for insects in strange postures as they are easy to spot and photograph after they have caught their meal.

But this particular one was quite stupid. Not only did he not know he wasn't camouflaged, but I watched him within striking range of 3 different insects - but didn't strike at any. Perhaps he's a picky eater.

Here are two of the three meals that got away (would have made a better image if he did catch them):

Great as usual, love the hawkmoth and snake.

WOW you sure proved it`s worth taking a look around the yard with these , very good series Loupey. :)

ok, crab spiders are now officially at the top of my list as most wanted new captures.:D i love the orchid like coloration on the exoskeletons...creates such a great contrast with the flower beds they seem to thrive within/on...I wonder if I can come across some in Illinois? I will try wikipedia to get some of their locational/geographical habitation info.

Great stuff, I especially like the last two in the first post. The moth and the snake, maybe I should spend more time in the yard.....

Very cool! :D

Thank you, Bev, Knight, nps, s-d, and Amber :)

My son has been working hard in the yard. Here are a few he has taken with his (don't know how it became his) 10D and 70-300mm. I have his camera preset to use Av (pegged at f/6.7), ISO 800 (to compensate for camera shake), and AF. I plan to take away/reduce from him one of these presets every time he gets cocky :)

He did get that shot of the bee exiting the flower. A shot I tried several times to get but couldn't :rolleyes: