Up Close with Nature

Lacewing and mantidfly are insects in the order Neuroptea (net winged insects). Both are quite rare, at least here in Malaysia. I have only seen like 7 lacewings in four years of macro photography, and even fewer mantidflies! Other Neuropterans like antlions and owlflies will be included here as well. My first mantidfly. What a gorgeous creature! Another shot of this beauty. Another one with

This is a collection of all the sleeping wasps and bees I have encountered during night macro. You won't find them sleeping like this during daylight. Sleeping blue cuckoo bee, Thyreus sp. profile shot I don't like to sleep alone :D (Halictidae: Nomiinae) Blue banded bee Hover wasp (Vespidae: Stenogastrinae) Another sleeping bee (Halictidae: Nomiinae)

Gonocephalus grandis is a diurnal species that is native to primary rainforests and good secondary forests They occur mainly along streams of all sizes.  More tropical reptiles and herps here. A male adult Gonocephalus grandis,  Great angle head lizard in all his glory. A full body shot showing how long its tail is! A female, adult. She wasn't shy and let me got really close!

Sharing another full flash macro rig. This time it's from Matt (MVers on Flickr). He uses Sigma 150mm and 48mm of tubes plus 1.4X TC. More macro rigs here. Sigma 150, 48mm of extension tubes, 1.4x teleconverter, 580EX II and big DIY Diffuser. There is an adjustable panel for you to control the amount of light diffusion to suit different subject. Great idea, right? You can control the

Maliau Basin trip report, Part II. You can find Part I here. Violin beetle Jewel beetle, Catoxantha opulenta Dead leaf mantis, Deroplatys truncata Fishfly -  Neochauliodes borneensis (van der Weele, 1909), belonging to the subfamily Chauliodinae of family Corydalidae. Male adults. Mating pair of green lantern bugs, Pyrops shiinaorum shiinaorum Green lantern bug, Pyrops shiinaorum

Maliau Basin or also Maliau Basin Conservation Area, is a region in Sabah, Malaysia, which represents a geological catchment surrounding the Maliau River. Located around the center of Sabah in the Sandakan Division, it was designated as a conservation area by the Sabah Foundation (Yayasan Sabah) in 1981. Later in 1997 the Sabah State Assembly gazetted the Basin as a Protection Forest Reserve (

As mentioned in my previous post on using a single 270EX for macro, there were two issues that needed to be addressed. The two issues were: 1. shadow on the lower part of the subject 2. very dim catch light in subject's eyes. In my opinion, these two issues were caused by the fact that the 270EX was too far out and as a result, the light would come down from a higher angle. In this post, I