Beauty and the beast (photo of a Venus flytrap)

[Ecooper]

Another one of my flytraps has been busy...from my blog this morning...

Cheers,
EC
macrocritters


venus flytrap F8 copyright Ernie Cooper 2012 sm for post by ernie.cooper, on Flickr

[Photo-John]

Whoah - that's cool! It's a very nice photo and a different sort of wildlife photo from what I think we usually see here. You said, "my flytraps." Does that mean you have a collection of these plants? Can you give us some more technical details? How big is this flytrap, how big is that moth and what kind of setup are you using to shoot? Is this a straight shot or did you use any additional lighting or light modifiers? It looks to me like there's a reflector, diffuser or a little fill flash being used.

Thanks for sharing. I am always psyched to see something new on the forums

[Ecooper]

Another one of my flytraps has been busy...from my blog this morning...

Cheers,
EC
macrocritters


venus flytrap F8 copyright Ernie Cooper 2012 sm for post by ernie.cooper, on Flickr

Haha! Thanks for the awesome comments! I’d be happy to oblige...

I have a number of carnivorous plants in my bog garden. To be honest, it isn’t really a garden; it’s just a big pot with a variety of carnivorous plants growing in it. But it is easily the most interesting spot in the whole garden. It is always fascinating to see what kind of bug has been trapped by which plant. However, I only just bought this particular Venus flytrap last week (because of the bright colours).

Here are the details you asked for:

• The trap that caught the moth is about 1 inch (2.5 cm) across and the moth would have had about the same width of wingspan.
• The setup was really simple: an Olympus E-620 digital SLR and Zuiko 35mm macro on a Benbo tripod and ball head. The day was overcast so I just shot with available light with the camera set to aperture priority. Exposure was F8 @ 1/13 sec. Because this plant was still in a pot I was able to move it to the railing of my deck. That allowed me to easily shoot at eye level and to place it such as to ensure a pleasing background. I did, however, have to cut the edge of the pot so that it wouldn’t be in the photo. I also had to trim a little of the moss in the pot.
• No reflector, fill flash or anything else. The only post processing was to darken the highlights just a little to bring out a little more detail on the surface of the flytrap.

Cheers,
EC
macrocritters