The Parent Bug Elasmucha grisea
e6filmuser
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There was very little insect life to be found in my garden after the overnight rain. As I walked past some potato plants, I noticed a smallish, pale bug partly hiding under the edge of an overlapping leaf.
I fetched my camera and started shooting with flash. To my surprise, the bug scarcely moved. My card was full so I took it to my PC and tranferred the images. After a brief look through them, I decided that some daylight shots might be useful to define the colour of the bug.
The bug then became a little more active. It seemed to want to be elsewhere than the leaf it was on but, after climbing around a bit, always returned there.
Getting the daylight shots was not so easy. It was bright overcast and I opened up the aperture from f16 to f11 for a faster shutter speed. I find the IS to be very inconsistent. In a series of attempts at a given shot, each with the camera held equally firmly, the images vary from sharp to so blurred as to be almost unrecognisable. I got enough daylight exposures to have two acceptable ones (uploaded in a “reply”).
Studying the images and those on a website, I identified the bug as the Parent Bug, so-called because it broods its eggs and then the newly-hatched nymphs. Neither were to be seen and I don’t even know which sex the bug was. This is another “first” for Shield-bugs in my garden.
http://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Acanthosomatidae/elasmucha_grisea.html
EM-1, Kiron 105, f16 or f11, twin TTL flash, camera in manual mode or in aperture priority mode for daylight, hand-held, with some support from a pole for the daylight ones.
Harold
Daylight ones:
I fetched my camera and started shooting with flash. To my surprise, the bug scarcely moved. My card was full so I took it to my PC and tranferred the images. After a brief look through them, I decided that some daylight shots might be useful to define the colour of the bug.
The bug then became a little more active. It seemed to want to be elsewhere than the leaf it was on but, after climbing around a bit, always returned there.
Getting the daylight shots was not so easy. It was bright overcast and I opened up the aperture from f16 to f11 for a faster shutter speed. I find the IS to be very inconsistent. In a series of attempts at a given shot, each with the camera held equally firmly, the images vary from sharp to so blurred as to be almost unrecognisable. I got enough daylight exposures to have two acceptable ones (uploaded in a “reply”).
Studying the images and those on a website, I identified the bug as the Parent Bug, so-called because it broods its eggs and then the newly-hatched nymphs. Neither were to be seen and I don’t even know which sex the bug was. This is another “first” for Shield-bugs in my garden.
http://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Acanthosomatidae/elasmucha_grisea.html
EM-1, Kiron 105, f16 or f11, twin TTL flash, camera in manual mode or in aperture priority mode for daylight, hand-held, with some support from a pole for the daylight ones.
Harold
Daylight ones:
0
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