Comments

To tell you the truth Randy, because I've been using the phone so often and not the Lumix (with an added macro lens), I've found I have to get used to and relearn the distances I need to move again when using the Lumix, lol, especially since most the shots are also taken at 4x - 5x zoom too.

I believe the shallow depth is even more noticeable because there is no true background or extra clutter spread around the fly, to add more depth to this particular image, except the thin wire . . . which isn't much. Kind of like my last skipper butterfly shot, without the background and clover bloom in that one, the butterfly itself and image would have looked much flatter than it appears with those added elements.

So obviously not as much interaxial separation as I normally have or like with most my cha-cha shots, but the detail is nice and the depth is adequate. Then again for most instances and viewers, my images usually have way too much, or at least somewhat too much anyway . . . so I would think many people viewing my images might express a sigh of relief and enjoy these more. Guess I'll have to find a mid-point some day. ;-)

Nicely done sir

Not a lot of depth, but very good detail.

I love the story behind this and the Mantis. We don't have those insects.

Oh, I should have added the extraordinary circumstances which led to me getting the photos of this particular large moth.

My nephew and I were coming back from the barn after the horse's nighttime feeding, and I always look around the large outdoor overhead lights for interesting insects which might have collected in the surrounding area. We had a few bats patrolling the area as usual too. I started using my spotlight to track a couple as they passed very close over our heads, trying to get a better glimpse of them.

As this one bat was zooming towards and over us very low, I caught it perfectly in the bright flashlight beam for an extended amount of time, but it was flying very oddly and looked very unusual too, as if there was something huge stuck to it.

As it came within just 10 or so feet right above us, still in the in the full beam of my bright flashlight, it appeared as if it split in two for a second with some kind of odd bright flash, and a large object started flipping and fluttering down towards us. At the same time the bat itself had veered away and upwards more and out of my light.

As this rather large thing fell towards us, we were slightly startled and stepped back quite a bit so it wouldn't hit us . . . wondering what the heck it might be . . . well, it turned out that odd thing we seemed to see stuck to the bat and had become this falling object, was this huge moth pictured here !!!

The bat couldn't have been more than a few inches larger than the this moth it must have captured, but I presume had then dropped as my flashlight beam was trained on it all the while it flew towards and over us. The moth hit the ground and started fluttering all about out of control.

We quickly walked over to investigate, and I picked it up gently. It looked perfectly ok, without any damage, so I let it go in an upright orientation . . . and it flew directly over to the shop light. Unfortunately it started battering itself into the light and wall for a bit, :-( , but then finally settled down and landed.

So I then was able to get a few captures . . . and here we are . . . ;-)

We used to have tons of them around the property, but the last few years since I first started up 3D photography their numbers seemed to have dwindled greatly. because of that I have not had a usable 3D pair of captures of any lightning bugs yet Tom, with the opportunity only coming up a couple times for me.

I have been pretty lucky this year with some larger moths that I haven't seen previously though, which is nice because I don't too often see any of the larger butterfly species. The big moths are also more apt to sit rather still more often as well as for longer periods of time . . . which really helps for cha-cha! :-)

Thanks for the explanation ! grt Wim

Gee, Dark, you sure do find the bugs and critters! Last night a firefly flew in through the open (but screened) kitchen window. I rescued him, and took him back outside - told him he was lost, that he belonged down your way!

Tough crowd to please . . . I'm pretty sure it's a little of both this time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is your focus fuzzy or is it just a fuzzy moth? :)

Unless that's already cropped to 100%. I'd like to see it cropped tighter so the moth covers more of the frame.

A very beautiful moth graced our shop's area lighting the other night for the first time I've encountered one here . . . a male peacock moth.

After getting a few captures of it with its wings closed, I gently nudged it on either side of them and got it to open its fore-wings to reveal the iconic spots on its gorgeous hind-wings !!!

An interesting and somewhat ironic observation by my nephew while we were looking at the several photos I captured. Looking closely at the fore-wing's markings, he mentioned how the larger colored irregular spots on them, looked like a cave drawing of a horse! :-) Yes, especially with owning a couple horses, it was easy for me to see those spots as tiny horse drawings as well, . . . how about you??? [:-O)

Another rescue mission . . . found this poor guy struggling to stay afloat in the horses water tub the other night.

Another rescue mission . . . found this poor guy struggling to stay afloat in the horses water tub the other night.

Another rescue mission . . . found this poor guy struggling to stay afloat in the horses water tub the other night.

Sorry for the title, one must be familiar with the US comedy TV show Saturday Night Live to get the joke! [;-)

These are some protective pupa casings while it goes through metamorphosis into an adult insect . . . but I have no idea which insect pupae were inside these, though I could see them moving around in them which was kind of cool. :-)

Thanks Duncan, these milkweed florets are excellent for 3D depth with all their tiny flower heads poking about in various clumps throughout the plant.

lol Timo ;-), yes, all 1000+ images posted to my Phereo account, and every 3D image I've ever taken were all shot cha-cha style, it's the only method I use.

I have taken images of dead insects in the past, but very few really. Just like the vast majority of my insect subjects I'm happy to say that this bee was certainly not dead, it was quite alive, though it did pause the 1 second I needed to get this pair of images shot of it as well as the other image of it I posted !
:-)

Insects can be difficult, and I've thrown away many cha-cha pairs of images over the years because of too much movement by the insect occurring between the pair of shots! With my Lumix camera I need between 2 - 3 seconds to get a pair captured, which is actually very slow when shooting insects with how often they tend to move, but with my Huawei Mate 8 cell phone I can get a pair of cha-cha shots in just 1 second or less it's so quick. Because of the phone's camera speed I've had to throw away less pairs taken with it than I do with the Lumix DMC-FZ35 camera.

The bad trade off between using the phone or Lumix is that I can get better quality captures in many situations if I use the Lumix instead, but the quality of the phone captures overall have been quite acceptable, and because I'm more apt to capture usable pairs with it more often, I've been using it more than my Lumix.

You also learn through trial and error some tactics that give you a better chance in getting successful captures, as well as some tricks that can be used for certain types of insects that will make them pause or stop moving for a few seconds, giving plenty of time for some good cha-cha shots.

Actually not as long as one would be led to believe Tom, especially with the selection tools Photoshop provides and having over a decade+ of experience with the program. For this butterfly It took just a few minutes to mask out both sides to get the out of box effect.

The worse part of trying to get this image pair to this point was that the butterfly had moved it's extended front right leg and the fully exposed antenna into completely different angles where the rivalry created was horrible between the pair. So I completely reconstructed the leg and antenna on the right image by cloning the parts from the left side. A little pixel manipulation and some tweaking that took about 15 minutes to get both done so that it looked fairly decent.

Yes, it does take a degree of patience, and It's definitely more time consuming to do these special OOB, 3D manipulated cutout framed images than just taking two stand alone images and bringing them together as is . . . but the more you do over the years, the better you become at getting them done a lot more quickly. I also think the reward in how they end up looking is definitely worth it for certain images, as it enhances the viewing pleasure. ;-)

Is this cha-cah? The bee must have been dead!

OK, Craig, now how long did it take to mask out the butterfly? This was done manually, right? Your other comment about having patience would hold true here too. I don't have the degree of patience you do.