Life of a Ladybug

doenoe · Jun 12, 2008

#1 Well, you crawl out of a yellow egg (of which i dont have a pic) looking a bit like this:

#2 Then you feel like making a blob of yourself and then look like this:

#3 And finally you crawl out of the blob and you'll be a beautifull ladybug:

And 2 shots just because i like them

#4

#5

Thanks for looking
Greetz Daan

im_trying11 · Jun 12, 2008

thanks for teaching me what a ladybug looks like i always thought it was born like #3

Bifurcator · Jun 12, 2008

Me too! Pretty interesting stuff! Doenoe, do you ever post a pic that doesn't rock? I swear!

All fantastic shots!

I started off with #1 saying ooo that rocks, Then looked at #2 and went Ooo, even better! then #3 and said to myself dang, better still! Then I saw #4 and my socks melted.

Awesome images as usual (!!!) but I feel you should reimburse me for the socks!

BoblyBill · Jun 12, 2008

Bifurcator said:
Awesome images as usual (!!!) but I feel you should reimburse me for the socks!

LOL, +1.

Dang Daan, I guess I'll have to nominate a picture from you...

kellylindseyphotography · Jun 12, 2008

I now deem you....

The Bug Whisperer! :hail:

spiffybeth · Jun 12, 2008

wow, one of those was crawling around my office the past few days and we all marveled at it and and had no idea what it was. apparently it was a ladybug that had just crawled out of its yellow shell.

thanks for this thread, daan.

mr_baseball_08 · Jun 12, 2008

Just curious but what kind of Macro set up do you have? You are at a lot greater than 1:1 magnification in all those shots, so you've got to be doing more than using a macro lens.

Bifurcator · Jun 12, 2008

I asked him the same thing. It seems he gets asked in just about every thread. So far I think his best answer is in this message about half way down: http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1271407&postcount=9 I'm betting he has a Nikon and is using it occasionally at F32. It almost looks like those stacked images I saw in another thread here.

mr_baseball_08 · Jun 12, 2008

I just don't see how's it possible.. I have the Canon 100mm Macro and I've taken lady bug pictures before and you can get nowhere near that close.. Regardless of aperture, something else has to be in the equation unless he's making some ungodly large crops, in which sharpness would suffer.. So I'm just not sure.

hippyatheart · Jun 13, 2008

These pictures are extremely sharp!

Flora · Jun 13, 2008

Oh, I love #3...ladybugs are so cute!

Chiller · Jun 13, 2008

Excellent as always. Really really love the fly shot. :thumbup::thumbup:

Bifurcator · Jun 13, 2008

mr_baseball_08 said:
I just don't see how's it possible.. I have the Canon 100mm Macro and I've taken lady bug pictures before and you can get nowhere near that close.. Regardless of aperture, something else has to be in the equation unless he's making some ungodly large crops, in which sharpness would suffer.. So I'm just not sure.

Well, it IS possible... or we wouldn't be seeing the images here.

Whether or not he's coming clean with every detail in his steps may be uncertain but in his defense that's totally his propagative. I guess most photographers don't tell everything - I know I often don't.

If for no other reason than just to stop people from saying things I don't want to hear about how I went from real life to image and whether or not it's "OK" in their opinion. Personally I think he's invented a microscopic make-up set complete with miniature mascara and highliner pencil.

If you look at his top image he's really pushing the limits of sharpening. To make things bigger there's some pretty cool and capable tools out there like AleinSkin BlowUP and Genuine Fractal 5, either of which with I can go to about 300% before it starts falling apart and begins to start looking crystalized.

As far as getting close there's always closeup corrective lenses. Here's two shots I took with a No. 2 AC closeup lens in combination with the lens's own macro capabilities:

With Flash
Without Flash
Actual subject is about 3/4 of an inch long.

And these are pulled back petty far. With just a #2 I can zoom up on just his head and 1st set of shoulders - including antennae. So these are about 4 times the mag as his posted images and the #2 offers very little magnification - it mostly just gets you a little closer. These are unedited and just color balanced from the RAW by the way. This camera is a total POS too. I think it sells for about $200 now and the lens is pretty low grade compared to a pro set. It's the Minolta (wanna-be SLR) A2 - which I got mainly for the bullet-time effect I was doing for a TV commercial. They're very responsive and I could afford and fire 48 of them at once from a laptop rig. This is the last remaining soldier. :hugs:

It sports a non-detachable 28mm ~ 200mm (2.8 - 3.5) with a macro at either end. It's 200mm F11 as opposed to 105mm F32 but I can easily get shots like this at f5 or 6:

This is after processing and has been scaled to 25% of it's original size. Each flower here is maybe just one or two millimeters larger than a ladybug - they are TINY little flowers! So if he scaled his only by 50% then that's just about right. Certainly not enough wiggle room for sincere doubt.

Maybe if we're real kewl and kiss lots of butt we can get him to post a detailed step-by-step for one of his images - "with pictures and arrows on the back of each one explaining what each one was in order to be used in court against us." - Officer Oddy.

doenoe · Jun 13, 2008

thanks for the great comments everyone, really really appreciate it.
I dont do alot of special things to take these pics. I use a Canon 350D, Speedlite 430EX with a Lumiquest softbox on it and then some patience and a steady hand

Then its of to Photoshop, open the picture and crop. Most of the time, pretty much (ill upload an original picture later on, dont have the time now) What i usually do first is levels, with very green shots you dont drag the white arrow to were the "mountain" of your histogram starts, but you go half-way. Then slide the middle arrow so it gets a bit darker. Then its of to brightness/contrast. Contrast get a +10 usually and brightness goes to -5. And after that its time for saturation, goes to about +10/+15. Then i sharpen it: 150/1.0/0. Time to open Neatimage and put the image thru that. After that open it in PS again and resize it to the size you want. Dont forget to use the unsharp mask again after that, only use these numbers then: 50/0,5/0 So there, no magic or strange selfmade lenses or something like that.
The numbers used are not always the same, but i use these alot. For the people who are going to try it, good luck and make sure you're going to post your outcome on TPF

Bifurcator · Jun 13, 2008

I'm definitely going to try (if you'll lend me your miniature make-up kit!

) and will post the results. I'm messing around the last few days with insects I catch in the house and can strap down to my desk - so I'll know what works best with this particular rig (for insects) when I'm actually in the field. I'm currently between (real) cameras but I bet I can pull something half-way decent off anyway. We'll see. And thank you for the details! Much appreciated!