Tiny creatures on gaillardia

paddler4

Today I went to the garden intent on trying to figure out an interesting way to capture an unusual variety of gaillardia and instead got caught up tying to capture a host of very tiny creatures on them. With my maximum magnification (roughly 2:1, 68mm tubes on a 100mm macro), I had to crop pretty severely to get these, so the quality suffered, but I think some are interesting.

All single image, handheld, 1/200, f/13, flash, ISO 200, 50D.

C&C welcome, of course.

Dan

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A tiny fly, perhaps 2mm long:



A minuscule translucent ant--you can see the size by comparison to the pollen grains:



A somewhat larger (but still small) fly, drinking:



Is this a mite or a tick nymph? (I should know, because tick-borne illness is common here).

Lord Vetinari

Good series - lighting a little harsh (perhaps need more diffusion on the flash)- amazing what you find in flowers and things when you really start looking !
Certainly not an expert on ticks but that was my first thought when I saw the last shot but it may just be a spider mite.
Brian v.

paddler4

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Good series - lighting a little harsh (perhaps need more diffusion on the flash)- amazing what you find in flowers and things when you really start looking !
Certainly not an expert on ticks but that was my first thought when I saw the last shot but it may just be a spider mite.
Brian v.

Brian,

Thanks. I agree about the flash. My diffuser now is just a stofen omnibounce covered by a single sheet of paper towel. Not sufficient, it seems.

Dan

GOLDENORFE

its amazing what you can find on one plant!

have a go at making a coke can diffuser

phil