Winter insects

Yesterday, January 18, I suddenly discovered that arthropod life was booming in a nearby forest plantation. There were a huge number of winter mosquitoes, however, they did not swarm, as on December 1, but simply fluttered between the branches of bushes and landed on the snow (for some reason, part of it was next to dog excrement). A very small spider was also seen running briskly through the snow.






Biotope:



For the second week there is a plus temperature, but not much, max 4 degrees. The weather is cloudy, rainy, and fungal. Similar mushrooms (Flammulina velutipes and Tremella mesenterica) are common at this time of year:




Still, certainly, there should be oyster mushrooms, but they need to be searched for a long time. And there is no more time: according to forecasts, a new cold season is approaching (up to -20 and below).

Here they are, met today "winter" insects of the new season )))
Pictures, by the way, are much more beautiful in the shade than in the sun.

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The most terrible quality of these photos can only be justified by the distance from the miracle macro-tele-mobile pan of at least 10 m. Yes, even the most fearful rare wasps will not fly away, the only question is whether it will be possible to distinguish them from non-fearful ordinary ones based on the obtained images. If I have only a couple of mm of grip, then Pan, apparently, does not have it in principle.

And my photo hunt went something like this:










And these are raw, unprocessed images (only I cropped Callifora's head a little), and when I put the stacks out, I'm afraid that the pan will burst from starting up.

In general, over the past decade, the current beginning of February in Donetsk turned out to be, perhaps, the most interesting harvest for arthropods. Despite the fact that the temperatures are quite ordinary - near zero, then +1, then -1. Apparently, the sun has done its job, usually in winter, except in severe frost, it is always overcast.

This post was edited by ENO-02/08/2016 03: 23

That's right, Ezox, that the pictures of my flies, except for the beetle, were taken from a meter distance, and everything there is fine with sharpness, if you would strain your eyes and pay attention, then all the areas of life are not blurred, just the lighting is not very good, the illumination is obtained, only the beetle is photographed from 10 cm, by the way, approx 1.5 mm in size

And you have images with very low sharpness + even without contrast and color saturation.

What is the FLU? A purely subjective quantity, defined by what appears sharp to the observer and what does not. So, in yesterday's pictures of Pan, nothing in my face seems sharp to the observer, except for a little hetoknema.
There is no light, then terrible aberrations, and the last photo is proof of this. By the way, I am also not happy with the aberrations of my lina, which are especially noticeable at the edge of the frame, but compared to what we see in Pan's pictures, this is not an aberration at all, but just a light artistic effect. By the way, about the last photo: judging by the almost as insignificant GRIP as mine, it was made without using a "hyperfocal kit", from a distance of much less than 1 m. And it was still creepy.

What's wrong with "color saturation"? Just now I looked at the photos - the colors on them are exactly the same as I saw them live. Saturation and contrast, of course, could still be tweaked in a photo editor, but why embellish reality?

Ezox, you stop scaring people)) If you see in reality as utebya on the pictures.. ))
There is no color saturation at all and close to nature, and color contrast too, well, I would compare at least my own pictures at the top with the bottom ones )))

My lenses are very blue, chromatic aberrations are strong, yes, but at least the color contrast is transmitted b/m, and the aperture does not fall.

Today, the sun was brighter and the colors were brighter (I didn't adjust anything).:







But there was another problem: in the bright sun, the element's shiny cuticles bristle with iridescent rays, like porcupines with needles:



Diffraction or something? With the flash through the reflector, this was not the case, despite the fact that the diaphragm was then more covered. Strange.

Well, the GRIP, of course, can not be increased by any lighting. Only stacking (=stationary insects) will help here.

This post was edited by ENO-08.02.2016 20: 34

So, I collected the promised stacks. This took a little longer than I initially expected, as it required the installation and development of new software for me (special note for Pan Stepovoi, who is concerned about piracy: not a single copyright holder was affected in the process). In addition, the quality of the footage in terms of overlapping individual images in the GRIP and field of view turned out to be, to put it mildly, not ideal, and the insects themselves managed to move at least something in the intervals between frames.



Pollenia sp., male, Donetsk, building wall, 07.02.2016. A stack of three snapshots.




The same instance from a different angle, also out of three. Here the hairs on the back of the left side were slightly ahead of the first image's GRIP.




Calliphora sp., male, same location, same day, but different wall. There were four of them, or rather most of them were two, and the other two had only small areas of the fly, but they were also useful.




Coccinella septempunctata, same wall, 07.02.2016. From two images.




Lygaeus sp., 08.02.2016, still the same place. It consists of four images.




Coccinella septempunctata again, on the Formica pratensis anthill, 07.02.2016. From two images. Interestingly, the moisture on her elytra condensed from the inside...




Pyrrhocoris apterus, wall of a building (already the third one), 06.02.2012, from two images.




Pyrrhocoris apterus, same place and time also from two images. I had to tinker with these, because the topmost bug couldn't sit still, but I think I managed to" seat " it perfectly. It is bad that only one bug completely fits in the GRIP, the rest-only in parts. On such a scene with my nozzle, perhaps, you need at least 6 pictures.

This post was edited by ENO - 02/11/2016 16: 30

I almost forgot, especially for Pan, to whom the gray reality, photos of which I usually post without any embellishments, seems lifeless, "flat", and the colors are not colored enough, - a worm-eater under mushrooms is Euro-integrated:



This post was edited by ENO - 02/11/2016 00: 10

Oh how!



Now it is certainly not lifeless, and at the same time completely true.

It seems that pan-Stopovoi abandoned the hopeless task of competing with me in macro photography with a wince of improvised means and switched to designing a machine for cutting reeds. In the meantime, I continued to "run in" the nozzle and photo processing software. It's getting better every day. So, you see, over time we will catch up with the funnels with watering cans and overtake them. However, the objects are still mostly the same: soldier beetles, ligeuses, and two types of ladybugs (the aforementioned C. septempunctata and Adalia bipunctata).








And here's what it looks like from a bird's eye view of the standard A550 macro mode, the difference is really huge:




There were almost no flies this time, as the weather is warm (as much as +6), but cloudy and wet. But I got here-such a micro-beetle (I suspect that the genus Lebia), which I had to photograph on the run, and then collect the image in pieces:



The bug, having never received a good picture, hid in the leaf litter, I dug it out, but not one, but together with such a spider:



There was also a small weevil, but it went too fast into the bowels.

I observed the first mating of colops soldiers in the year, the earliest in my memory (usually "locomotives" appear no earlier than mid-March). Unfortunately, the couple turned out to be very shy and hurried to hide after the weevil. So you'll have to take my word for it that they're copulating, not just turning their asses on each other.



The Formic pratensis anthill has become noticeably more ants. After the scouts, who have so far ventured only to the edge of the earthen rampart, the first heat carriers and builders appeared, correcting the blades of grass. Unfortunately, the lack of light combined with the increased mobility of ants caused by warming did not allow us to take good pictures, with the rarest exceptions, either daub or terrible noise from ISO 400 turned out.




Well, to top it off, so that the pan has the opportunity to marvel at not only my photographic magic, but also our Donetsk nature, to admire its beauty in awe, landscapes.






In the last three photos-an oak tree almost in two of my girths (and I have them - God forbid everyone). This is in the forest, surrounded by their relatives, and not in the city under the wall of the hospital, as in Nikolaev. These oaks, there are only a few of them in the entire forest, apparently of natural origin, still remained from the bayrachnaya oak grove, but if they were artificially planted, then under some kind of king. And around them, already under Stalin, many new ones were planted. So the Donetsk forests grow stronger from year to year, even though they are periodically shelled from rocket artillery by adversaries. And in Nikolaev as there were only three oaks, so the three of them will die of old age.

This post was edited by ENO-02/13/2016 06: 20

we recently had -30 and then it became +5 and not far from the heating main I found a peacock's eye on a snowdrift, although braked, but alive. and yesterday, in the heat on the wall of the barn, flies and a seven-leaf were frolicking. spring is near and last year's material has not yet been sorted out

This post was edited by AGG-02/13/2016 15: 19

The bug, having never received a good picture, hid in the leaf litter, I dug it out, but not one, but together with such a spider

Lebia (Lebia) trimaculata, sort of.

Today there was a transition beyond +10, which I have been waiting for for so long, focusing on the bourgeois forecast. But the trouble is, the warming did not come by itself, but together with strong winds and rain clouds. I was in the woods today. Not a single insect, not even a single winter mosquito flew by. All I saw was a small lycosida spider scurrying through the forest floor. According to the forecast, there are still a couple of warm days ahead, and then frost again right up to March (and maybe even until April, just the model does not extend beyond the beginning of March). As if again (for the third year in a row), the apricot buds that have already begun to swell do not freeze.

Esox.. what competitions.. They've been finished for a long time

Look, Esox, what Power looks like, and listen
And then steaks, shmeiki, ponimaeshsh..

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In
And then all sorts of steaks.. And all this in cloudy weather with ISO200, full shots

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For a long time, Pan pored over the new upgrade, if I hadn't spurred several times, I probably wouldn't have "given birth". I finally got rid of those terrible aberrations. Instead of Lynza, did you put a" sovdepovsky defense " lens? So, you see, over time, normal macro photos will learn to do. As a fly in the ointment in the framework of pride prevention: in the first two pictures there is an acute shortage of light, a dead rider generally lurks in the semi-darkness. And most importantly: these photos are offtopic in this topic, it is dedicated to insects that are active in winter in nature, and not among the dead skin scales under Pan's bed. For flowers, if no one is sitting on them, there is generally a separate forum. Presumably, something went wrong with the photo hunt outside the apartment. There already in Nikolayevshchina, probably, crocuses with mother-and-stepmother in full bloom, and it all achimenes in a pot fotkaet.

Ezox, don't slow down
And the lenses are still the same, + aspherical element

Oh, while I was typing the answer, Pan still gave birth to a new post, this time on the topic. Are these stacks? In this case, it is scary to imagine what the GRIP was on individual frames. For reference: the point of stacking is to make the subject sharp in its entirety, not just in parts. Yes, that ISO 200 is visible. It was necessary to go to the ring with noise suppression, because there is no pixel-by-pixel detail, you can't see the hatome and the sculpture of the covers, there is nothing much to lose. And how is it sung there:

Fog in the spring,
Fog in the valley...

There are only two photos that are relatively suitable: the second is a cow and a bug, the rest I would not even post. Still, the indoor flowers from pan are much better to take pictures of.

Yes, to shame the "funnels" is still very far away. But we're on our way.

This post was edited by ENO-02/15/2016 16: 43

Ezox, don't you understand humor? What steaks, these are ordinary shots, without any fuss, I have nothing to do, and this is in cloudy weather, I would look at Esox's creations in such a situation when ISO 200 is not enough even at an aperture of 3-4)))

And so with a diaphragm of 3 or 4, crawling and taking off animals, and ppasmurnyatine, our expert can?

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there is not a single bit of artistic or scientific significance in these pictures.

He said it like he cut it off

And why should I buy some kind of baida, if my nostaka weighs about 100g, even with an additional lens, and any Soviet Zenitovsky object is at least 300 and if under macro - then all 400. This is if the problem is to do something with your hands, then yes, only in this case I would have already bought an Ezox, a DSLR and an object-watering can, because you haven't fed Ukraine for a long time, the economy must be on top, I stepped over the clips and import substitution, and bought what is messing with lynza and "steaks"

Pan, as usual, scoffed. "Some kind of kayak" weighs just about 100 g ( + / - , there are different modifications). Hint:" some kind of canoe " has nothing to do with Zenith lenses.

About the economy: pan is afraid to turn on the flash on his Starodrykov Olympus, suddenly the processor will burn down, probably a year for a new similar used camera will have to save up.

Today is a real spring in Donetsk. And the night before, it was, you might say, summer, no, not in terms of temperature, but in terms of precipitation-it rained until the morning like a bucket, except that there was no thunder and lightning. And just like in summer, with the dawn, the clouds abruptly dispersed and by 9 o'clock in the morning there was not a cloud left in the sky. Going to the thermometer I expected that. as is usually the case with such a change of weather in winter, there will be if not negative. it was near-zero temperature, but it wasn't +11! By noon, the thermometer rose to +14, however, a rather noticeable breeze blew and a small haze crept into the sun, but the ground that was soaked through during the night and last year's grass dried up, and I decided that the long-awaited day had come. when will I finally be able to photograph someone other than soldier beetles, ligeosas, seven-point cows, and pollen flies? And I wasn't fooled by my expectations. As soon as you went out into the courtyard, a wide variety of insects immediately began to come across, and not only at the warm walls, as before, but everywhere and everywhere.

Ants that had been previously immured in underground nests appeared on the surface (lyazius, tetramorium, and even Solenopsis fugax, which in general should not climb out of the ground). In addition to the frost-resistant soldiers and ligeius, various other beetles got out. The slow seven-point and two-point cows were joined by a small, nimble twenty-two-point cow. And most importantly-the samga founders of Polistes dominula flew out!

But the most interesting thing for me is in the beam. First-Anoplius viaticus, then-Cicindela campestris) and two control shots - Nymphalis sp. (polychloros or xanthomelas). And all this was far from being in a half-asleep state and extremely quickly flew, as if the yard was not February but at least April.

In a nearby oak plantation, there were even more shrewd cows than in the city, almost one per square meter of forest floor. The aphids will be in trouble this year. There are a lot of different spiders, one of them actually flew on a spider web right into my hand. All the bushes are covered with shiny threads, such is the "Indian spring".

Herbs began to grow, in particular, sprouts of saffron reticulated, goose onion belvalii Sarmatian appeared. But flowers are not even in the project yet. And in the city, snowdrops are already in full bloom on polisadniki. Cyclamen Kossky is somewhat behind this year, just budding and generally looking depressed. But the violet fragrant leaves are already powerful, flowering promises to be early. Upset one of the most early-flowering and favorite pollinators of herbs-small asterisk, its shoots in the usual places of growth literally do not exist at all. This has never happened before in my memory, usually the aboveground parts perfectly winter.

The photo hunt was a great success, but the hard work of cutting up the loot is ahead. So for now, I'll post just one photo for priming, let pan bokeh admire:

And pan did not answer whose eye he has at his disposal except for the missing katemenes and hornet of the east.

This is not bokeh, but a daub called)
And what can I do with those photos, I need 10 minutes? enough to convert everything to a different size, where you need to adjust the brightness and contrast and compensate for the results of resizing.

And if Ezox wasn't a nudist, he would have taken a picture of the poor hornet's eye long ago, cut it with his own details. And so-a typical drain.

Yes, and it's clear from your ants, I've already determined the appearance from these photos, which are already too tight, and this is despite the fact that I took five photos at ISO200 and aperture 4, because it was overcast. And in your pictures, it seems that the size is larger, and the sharpness is there, but at the same time - a daub, instead of hairs, one haze is visible..

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Esox.. what you posted is not a "minimum resolution".. This is the maximum tinplate ))

Do you remember laying out the head of a yellow egg here? I remember this mess
Well, the eastern hornet. But from Ezox we probably will not wait for its overdetalization, because la la la ))

Here, see what the Power looks like



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Is it that kind of power? Then she urgently needs vivagra, for lifting!

With jaundice, Pan's haze is exactly the same as mine, except that his eye is unnaturally dark and shiny.

A photo of the eye Vespa orientalis pan from me really will not wait. Although, no, I can't rule out that someday it will wait, if I suddenly catch her, but this is unlikely. Today, Pan won't get anyone's eyes on me at all - after a long photo hunt, the batteries are being recharged. But for priming one field photo, perhaps, I will post, there is also an eye, among other things:

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It was taken in normal mode at medium zoom (to fit the whole couple into the frame) in natural light. What can be achieved in macro mode at maximum zoom in room conditions on a dead insect with a flash, let it remain a mystery for now. But the main thing is that there are no aspherical elements, negative menisci and other matana, just a magnifying glass from the cabinet, to which only one detail is added - an adapter to the lens from a cardboard tube. Perhaps we should also try to cover up the inside of this tube with a black felt-tip pen. And Pan, with his instrument-making talent, as well as his talent for climbing flea markets, would have long ago acquired the aforementioned "sovdepovskaya defense contraption" and figured out how to plant it (or better-in general, put his kayaks instead of his native useless lens, so that there are fewer layers of glass and aberrations (tm)). And it would be all like him real adult "mokrushnikovs" (adjusted for "schmatrice", of course, but
this is not so terrible in comparison with the curve optics).

Esox.. here's a picture of a fly, just took a picture, a dry fly really, in the sun, a general plan, and a separate eye.
I think after that you realized that with your lynza, you can still forget about such a parameter as detail and resolution?

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Well, and the control

Photos from a distance of approx. 40cm. That's how it should be )))

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Why forget? My system (on a dead fly under controlled conditions) so many facets on the eye quite allows itself (now, perhaps, I will pick out for demonstration from a date palm that dead sarcophagus, which I previously posted a picture of in general plan). That's how much more it allows-this is already a question, maybe Pan has a little more (but here you can't do without a smaller facet eye to check). However, in this case, another problem arises: for some reason, Pan gets high-quality pictures only in the apartment (and then occasionally, this one is only the fourth in a row after two hay eaters and a flower), but if you compare the field photos, then mine is head and shoulders higher in quality. This is already visible, and will still be visible when I post the rest. The situation seems to hint that the problem lies not in the imperfection of optics, but in the excessive curvature of Pan's hands, which does not allow it to fully use its capabilities in real field conditions. Or simply put: Pan doesn't know how to take pictures in nature. Moreover, he never knew how (the conclusion was made by analyzing the published part of his long-term photo archive). After all, it's not a camera that shoots, but a photographer, and if the photoraf is a fig, then no aspherical elements will help it.

Esox, less text means more action! So much time has already passed that it was possible to upload images 10 times, and before that they were run through 10 Photoshop programs, although maybe this is the point, I already wrote - I have minutes to process images. 10 leaves)))

Well, the eye - to the studio, too, to me, ixpert...

Hmm. here is my photo from a distance of several tens of cm (not 40, of course, but 20 exactly), without using any third-party vandals:




The detail is only slightly worse than Pan's, but the GRIP covers with a huge margin, and Pan, at least, needs to stitch two pictures so that not only the back, but also the lower part of the head and legs are visible. But the main thing is that the size of the device is not comparable. With the nozzle, the dimensions increase only a little, but the result is much more interesting, but only from 5 cm less and the GRIP is 1.5 mm. Although, they say, there are some "Soviet defense" lenses that have a GRIP from 20 cm to the leading edge...

And at pan, I see, "nosatka" will soon grow up like this:



So, you see, pan will soon increase the distance of the circuit to 2 m (from the standard front lens), purely by increasing the "nose".

This post was edited by ENO - 02/17/2016 18: 52

  
The detail is only slightly worse

Mdya

With the fly came a small embarrassment: when trying to withdraw it, it only fell deeper into the sinus of the palm leaf, and back again (with a risk to the plant!) I managed to get only small fragments (scattered), among which I did not find the head. However, not everything is so bad, I made a crop from an old frame with a general view of the fly, the result is quite at the pan level:



But only on closer inspection it turned out not to be a sarcophagus at all, so again it is incorrect to compare.

Pana, it is interesting to ask: what is it there aza a loop of wires behind the kayak-Pinocchio stretches, a direct connection to the brain?