A walk around Hod Hill (an old hill fort) on a sweltering May Sunday at the weekend (was about 29 C officially, but felt much hotter especially as the previous weeks were cold), saw the bugs out in force with the temparature rise.
I spotted several butterflies on the wing including some orange tips, whites, blues and fritillary butterflies. I got a couple of id shots on my 100mm lens of the fritillarys, but not good enough for me to post due to the size in frame and when closer some ugly grass in the way. Hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll be able to get some better images to post.
What I did come across was a nice Cardinal Beetle on some neetles, and these 4 shots are the best of the set. All shots taken on my Canon 50D with MPE-65mm lens at around 1x magnification, apart from the last which was a close up at around 2x magnification.
Cardinal Beetle looking over Leaf
Cardinal Beetle on Leaf
Cardinal Beetle climbing Leaf
Cardinal Beetle on leaf close up
Map of Location
Really good set of pictures, in particular I really like the shot (2) where the beetle is striding across the leaf.
Did you use any different setting for shot (3) as it appears colder than the others? Plus there seems to be a very annoying white line just behind the shoulder of the beetle.
Pete
Thanks Pete
Glad you liked the shots. I didn’t use any different setting for the actual shot, but I used a slightly different white balance setting when converting the RAW image in post processing. This has the effects of making it looking slightly colder. I put it in as I was not sure what effect worked best, but I personally prefer the warmer settings.
The white line is a bit of spider web, which I guess I could clone out, but to be honest didn’t spot myself.