NEW PHOENIX LENS ADAPTER PICTURES

These pictures I took yesterday show how the Phoenix adapter and my good optics really are working. I am sick of flies--so I thought I'd start this off with an inchworm. This inchworm has a weird experience I will tell you about later.

I DECIDED TO MAKE THIS SEQUENCE WITH FEW WORDS AND BIGGER PICTURES--SOME OF THEM ARE IN HIGH-DEF---CLICK ON THEM TO SEE FULL SIZE! DON’T FORGET HOW TO GET BACK TO MY WEBSITE, USE YOUR INTERNET BROWSERS < -- ARROW BUTTON ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE AT THE TOP OF YOUR SCREEN.


This is an example of size as well as the ability to shoot from more then a foot away. This tiny fly on a dandy lion is about 7mm long.


A real warrior of the back yard--this is a Harvestmen. They resemble crabs more then spiders if you take a closer look. They are NOT SPIDERS, although often called daddy longlegs they do not spin silk or exclusively eat pray. I have little knowledge of them--but they can be very interesting. I believe they forage and scavenge. One book I recall reading told they eat more vegetable matter then other stuff. Many can be found running as fast as they can in my back yard these days. Finally I can photograph them better since I can get so far away. This guy has been in some fights--a spider web or spider probably got a hold of it's leg and it released it. Whatever happened they are hardy and amazing little things. Some can be much larger-- You REALLY want these in your garden. They are completely harmless--and cannot bite and do not have any venom.


Here she is again. Fighting for her life. Notice the similarities of the legs and abdomen to large aquatic crabs. They have a completely fused thorax and abdomen and only two eyes fixed ahead up on a small bulge you can see. Some species take this to the extreme with very long eye fixtures to allow for more visual ability.

One eye can be seen here above the word on the left of this picture. The other eye is on the other side. It's black looking and like spiders, has simple eyes more like ours then insects.


This is that inchworm story I wanted to tell you about. That fly looking thing up there is probably a male aphid. Aphids are literally born pregnant. But every now and then individuals with wings (If I recall males only) sprout out of a large colony to find another one. This insures that they are not all clones. Why it landed on this inch-worm I'm not sure--but some species of caterpillars are known to feed ants--it could be a connection with food.

And here it is--it sat there just long enough for me to finish this picture.


Then it went down here and flew off. It's definitely an aphid. And probably was not aware of the inch worm which clearly was startled.

Ok, back to the flies--that's one kind of insect that is always around here. This is a hover fly I shot while it was cleaning it's huge compound eyes.

Another hoverfly--my bellows focused right on to this dandelion flower--the tiny hoverfly did not mind me being as far away as I could. I have had to train myself to not take too many pictures of a good thing since I got the upper hand on the bugs now shooting from almost any distance I want.


This is about the highest resolution fly picture I have done yet. It is not as good as it could be with better lighting and light angles--as well as more light. This file had to be imported and brought up in RAW--without RAW it would not have turned out too well. Having to keep all this gear going I shoot RAW for mistakes like this but archive in JPEG.


Is this the best fly? I'm not sure. Hopefully as I will soon find out, the higher definition will let you see more then my usual on these pictures. I wanted to show how my lens worked. The truly full sized files are way too large to put on my website but I made these larger then normal.


A lady bug, two spots. Honestly I don't know how the spot thing works. There are tons of ladybugs here--I recall seeing one with no spots. Something I should look up. At least it's not another fly or bee!

A note here--PEOPLE MAY THINK that the end of this page is the end of my website. NO way! Please enjoy looking at 500+ more pictures under each month under “all pictures” at the top right hand side of my website. I must archive my pictures like this in order to keep you from having to wait hours to load my site. I have a lot more then just bug pictures! Check it out.