Up Close with Nature

Ladies and Gentlemen, we interrupt our usual postings of jumping spiders for this special capture - my first springtail. If you would like to find out more about springtail, check it out here on Wikipedia. I've shot springtail before but only when they came into the frame when i was shooting something else, like when shooting an ant. :D This one was 2mm long excluding the antennae. To be

Macro is a bit like portraiture, except instead of working with a human models, you work with insects. In portraiture, you want to get to know your models, help them relax, pose them and bring out the best in them. Same for insects. Okay, you can't really make insects pose if they don't want to, but knowing as much as you can about them help you in finding them, approaching them (without

Jumping spiders must the be cutest spiders of all. Period. :D All taken with a Canon 40D, Canon MPE65 , Canon MT24EX Twin Flash. A female Epeus sp? Guarding her precious eggs...awww.... The same loving mother with her lovely bunch of spiderlings Epeus sp. mom with spiderlings Viciria sp. jumping spider life cycle: eggs to spiderlings. Complete series here. A male Epeus sp.

Yes, another ant-mimic jumping spider. Another first for me. Not seen this red and black type of ant-mimic jumping spider before. Surely it's a mimicry of the Tetraponera rufonigra ant? That ant is also known as semut selangor, or MC Ant in Malaysia :D...yes..there are people who intentionally get themselves bitten by the ants just to get a medical certificate in order to get a day off work :D.

A female this time. What wonderful looking ant-mimic jumping spiders they are :) Gotta love them. A male one would look like this. Look at those chelicerae LOL. All images shot with a Canon 40D, Canon MPE65 1X-5X macro lens and Canon MT24EX Twin Flash with DIY Diffuser.

Photomerging is one thing that Photoshop (mine is CS3) does beautifully! Gotta love it! In fact, i helps to get me extra DOF too. How so? Let's dwell into the details here! First, lets look at the merged image i.e. the outcome: The whole robber fly is in focus, from head to tail...except the legs... Now lets look at the two pre-merging images that contributed to the merged images above: the

Okay, i know you're probably really really really bored of the cute ant-mimic crab spider by now. First, it's the Amyciaea lineatipes alone, then it's the Amyciaea lineatipes mating! What's next? But this is different - this is eating! Yes, an ant-mimic crab spider with prey! Unfortunately, the spider dropped its food soon after I took a few shots so these are all I've got! It's clear that