A NEW LENS ADAPTER CHANGES EVERYTHING!

An ant checking out a flower. The detail in some of these new shots from the adapter you will read about here is awesome and makes me proud because of the work I did to make it possible. Operating above f22--depth of field with very small insects and spiders is now possible.

BUY A STROBE for less then 10 bucks I bought myself a strobe flashing light as bright as a small flash unit and controllable up to very fast flashes. With it you can find details while in very high depth of field tests. It produces enough light to take a picture at f22. Unless you know how to build a battery inverter they are not very good outside but for shots inside they are a quick way to get allot of light somewhere--get one while Halloween garb is being sold with backlights. I'd recommend getting a battery powered FLORESCENT TUBE backlight if you can--they are useful if you like Scorpions. One of many subjects I have not caught here yet. They glow like radioactive paint when hit with UV light at night when they hunt. I have been told nobody knows why they glow yet.

MY GREATEST DAY IN PHOTOGRAPHY 9/27/2006--I built it! My uncle told me "it can't be done" so I did it. Thinking completely outside of the box and using some scrap materials I built a fully functional click on --simple and even marketable-solid system that converts Pentax to 4/3rds digital. I have some truly serious new lenses and optics now. I'm not going to brag here, but thanks to some luck and knowledge of mine, I invented an adapter that finally led to me being able to use in field my entire pro-macro kit. I have incredible new abilities that I am very proud of.

I thought you would want to see what most people call "beautiful" stuff before you see what my new lenses can do with what I consider to be beautiful and incredible. The fly below is far more interesting. I won't swat a fly again. The beauty is in the complexity we so often do not see. Well now with a true-pro macro kit--I can see and show you more then usual.


I call it my "digital Bug Collection". The high-res version is so good you can see fungus and other objects on it's body and count it's eye facets. I am very lucky to have acquired and then invented the adapter that changed how I take macro and micro photography forever. I can use this gear which can get even closer then above, on any subject. This fly is NOT POSED and I do not bereave in doing that. Especially if you kill the insect. This is a live shot taken in my back yard at a very high depth of field so you can't see anything else. If you ask me bragging, its bad luck. The only thing I will say is that shots like this become easier when you can shoot from a distance. I don't want to brag so I won't rattle of specs or how good or whatever this system is. If you want to know I can tell you in an e-mail a bit more. The point here is not the gear--just look at this. The beauty is in the complexity we so often do not Notice (or can't). Well now--after seeing this creation--think about this before you swat another fly.



A HONEY BEE and it's about 1/2 or a bit more sized "bully bee" competitor for nectar and pollen. Sometimes "bully bees"--as I Have named them are placid and sit together sipping nectar or nesting on one flower (see a couple months back with "all pictures")

With 3mp camera and a lens add-ons. I have made very nice close-ups that are high-detail insect and spider pictures. And good lenses common now to 4 to 6mp+ digital SLRs and more cameras with high powered close-ups and cropping ability just gets more cool--the days of killing masses of insects and trying to mount bug collections will hopefully slowly become less and less needed and done. I have made some really nice collections in my day--but in the end--when you move, or something happens--or you forget to change the mothballs--or whatever--they will fall apart. They do.

Spiders loose there color and usefulness in alcohol and I will never forget when my whole collection jar dumped open in my carry-on bag once onto the floor of the airplane! All the spiders and all the gauze and glass and crap in a pool with my field guides and notes. The days of that stuff should be over--and at least for me with high-res digital cameras at 35mm or 120 (studio-style- medium format) equiv. and higher the days of rotten empty skeletons and carcasses of messy bug collections are over. I used to be proud of my collections but I only have one small part of them left. Even in museums I have seen quite a bit of very visible insect parts and damage. When a new species has been discovered yes, you do need a specimen so don't get me wrong about the science end. I am just say thing EVERYONE does not need one! I am just hope that it catches on more and more that we do not need to have insect collections made by everybody that you know will be destroyed eventually no matter how pro you get it. Digital insect and spider collections with simple equipment can and will revolutionize this field soon as more and more people find they can study what they love without having to take from there allready much too short life-spans. This is a classic case that it is possible but people will probably not do it until they want to on a wide scale. I would never have gone to school for spiders and insects because I admire them so much and do not want to kill them. Like in all animals, they should be observed in there natural environment--even if that is your backyard.

With up to 2 feet of clearence I can shoot even a very shy fly at this level of magnification. Here it landed nicely on this leaf. I spend HOURS out there, sometimes 15min just sitting--looking for something to move. NONE of my shots are done like some people do-they are not cold-posed or worse--glued onto surfaces dead. This is a live fly that is probably still alive now. Did you know that we share more then one 1/2--ONE HALF of our DNA with FLIES.

At full-res this picture has truly incredible dimensions. I no longer need add-on lenses and my optics are far higher--most of all I am able to shoot from a great distance and even with a moderately powerful flash make a tiny 8mm fly shot have incredible detail. To make it possible for the Internet I have to make these files very small and cut down--if you want to see the full version of my digital Bug collection--you gotta e-mail me. I am thinking of joining a system that will make sales possible without word of mouth alone. My whole mission--or whatever you might call it--is to show people that making a Digital BUG COLLECTION is very possible and even more worthy. We can take the killing out of most work and be able to do what we love to do thanks to digital photography.

A fly chewing bubble gum? I am not sure what this is. Where it was found suggests that it may have stolen this liquid from local aphids, however I have never seen that happen. This fly was so
small it took me over a half hour to get one good shot of one of them. It is a typical small domestic house fly.


Another shot. More observation has has me thinking that it did get this fluid from local aphids as do the ants. It may milk them but most likely steals it when ants are trying. The files and aphids on the same dieing weed--it's the only thing that makes sense.


This is a house fly, one of my first fly pictures with my new gear. It is only about 3mm long-at most four with the wings. I can shot this at over a foot away which makes it far more possible to shoot insects with the pro-kit. However--it's allot of heavy gear and you have to get used to holding about 5 pounds of camera or so! Just wait--the new stuff is starting to trickle in as a process files.


This is a hover fly. I no longer need to get that close to my subjects, since my invention and macro kit that works because of it, I can get many types of views with the same lens.

No lens changes here--just an adjustment and I'm in bellows rail. These lenses are mechanical and outside my regular-looking digital SLR and they clicks in the same way--but I need to adjust some of the heavy components by hand. It's easy and gives a sense of old-school control lost in today's digital controlled world.

The power of my new lens system can be seen when you look at this image in full resolution. Some of these pictures you can blow up and some you can't. Lets just say the originals full size ones are nice.



A new look at an old friend. This is a species of bee I've been photographing for years now. But never this small. No big crops here. This thing could be 30x40' easy. These lenses can get even closer then this.


Feeding and collecting pollen, this image was taken from almost 2 feet away. This bee left just as I got a lock on her--caught in the moment due to a high powered flash and high shutter speed.

A jumping spider, this time--not out of focus and not too far away. I tried to get her to look at me but I did not want to loose the shot. This time the picture is much more clear for these tiny spiders. I love it.

This is where the SACK SPIDER is in it's natural habitat. A bit transparent and reflective in
ways that make it blend in without needing to change colors like crab spiders do. The sack and hear nearly invisible in a yellow overload of light.

MORE About these shots--these are the first pictures taken by me with the use of a new adapter that I honestly and literally invented and built for macro pictures. An adapter for my Pentax Macro gear so that it adds some ratio perspective and lets me use screw-on lenses as macro lenses and a true macro-kit I have. What I plan to do with it I don't totally know--right now--just make the best pictures I can and experiment with more lenses and setups. I am very proud of my ability to build this. Which far exceeds what I knew was becoming a "dead end" system of using end-of-lens add ons over and over. You just can't add more lenses or you lose all depth of field that way. The pictures above are only the beginning to what is the biggest breakthrough I have made in my photography experience since I built my first old-style camera lens extension setup on a 35mm film SLR. Since I learned I could build extensions out of relatively often simple stuff. God and life has dealt me a good hand here. I am very blessed to have these new abilities and I and can't wait to show you more pictures.

SOME NEW STUFF and some new lenses!

Sweet sunrises keep happening in the mornings here early. It's great to wake up to see and I've got allot of other shots on my site, many allot different from this one. It's really a site. Sunsets are relatively boring unless they bounce off the mountains because the sun goes behind a ridge rather then setting.




A rose I shot in from about 1 and a half feet away with my latest optics.


Small plants and survival plants really amaze me. They grow nearly anywhere and are very tough. These tiny plants are hosts for insects and interesting in and of themselves to me.


I got some new lenses! Awesome new lenses. I used to have to shoot my macro shots at about 5 or 6 inches away. Now a really great distance is about a foot and a half to nearly 2ft. With a couple other accessories I can switch to four feet or so--and with my largest lens I can get macro shots at 12 feet away for things like butterflies and small close birds. All these lenses, some of them donated--I got some stuff so that they work well in my digital SLR. Don't ever throw out lenses--you never know what you might want them. I am very proud of my new system but I don't like bragging and I have been having so much fun with it that I have not been doing enough posts or photographic homework here. And again taking too many pictures! I will get over it as I get used to using this new lens setup for my digital SLR. It includes a bellows for nearly microscopic shots and above f30.

THIS SHOT WAS TAKEN ALLMOST 2 FEET AWAY!

Not a bumble bee. It's a sweat be on the smallest sunflower I have ever seen. This shot was taken with some of my recent awesome macro lenses. I can now shoot pictures like this from 4 feet away. Not 4 inches. No fooling. It's awesome.


It is really fun taking pictures. I have 100s I want to put on my website. But that takes allot of time. I want to show you the wildlife in your house, in your back yard--so that you might think twice about killing or exterminating it. Let things grow--let life live. There is an old poem of unknown origin "If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive".



This hornets true colors will show up below in my other picture of it. Like a real trip here--I'm walking arround finding things to photogaph, and that's how I did this post. I messed up with the resolution here (sorry)--and my white ballence is off but I still want this picture. I would need to get the RAW file--reprocess it--and then re-process it for the internet and then re-post it. I need to do more before I post I guess. On average--it takes me about 1 hour per picture to do this even with very short captions.

A rose, I shot this at my neighbors. I should not have added my name to it. Sorry about the low-res pictures here--I set auto-processing files wrong. Most my pictures are twice these resolutions. I don't want to run the sequence again because it takes hours.


I used Photoshop to make this spider a bit more visible. It's a sack spider that was nearly transparent with the yellow flower around it. It made it's sack and my theory is that it's hairs cause it to reflect the colors around it. It does not change color but rather blends in by reflection. The sack spider in it's Natural habitat-always a really good thing to see.


A female Theriididae. Under my bathroom sink. She sits in the dark hardly noticed--taking care of ants, termites, earwigs and other insects people don't want at home.



This is a tiny hornet. It's about half-sized the size of a Sandhills Hornet--I'm not sure where it makes it's hives, I know very little about it. It will be awesome if someday we can hook cameras to insects or even just a radio tracking system--I could track her to her nest and learn a great deal about her. There are many things we don't know about even the most commonly seen insects because it takes a special kind of person to get into it. Their venom may lead to a cure to a disease, or anything else. All wildlife should be protected.

I know, some of the same old bee pictures, but I am interested in opinions on these new ones.
Closeups to the extremes are now possible because of my new macro lenses. I will get to that--I'm taking lots of pictures and more or less picked these from a few I have processed ready for the Internet just before realizing I made some errors in the conversions on some of these shots (sorry).

This bee is not just sipping nectar, as can be seen here, she's collecting pollen. I am not usually one to brag, but I very grateful that I recently got a number of macro lenses. I shot this picture from almost 2 feet away. With bellows I could have shot it at four or five feet away on a tripod. I love this gear! In a very humble way, as I said at the beginning of this post--most this stuff was given to me and I am very grateful to have it.


(Carpenter Ant)
My pointer finger, no it did not bite or sting. I thought how could I show this monster's size? Improvising quickly!


I never know what I am going to find. This is a close-up of an ant I ran across a while ago. Checkout the picture with my pointer finger in it--you can get a pretty good idea how big it is.


This is a small hornet that I've yet to lookup. It's tiny, about half the size of a Sandhills Hornet. The kinds that make those small hives on decks and gutters.


Courtship between a tiny harmless relative of the Black widow. It's so common chances are you have one within less then a few meters from you right now. There webs are often so small that they go unnoticed and un-dusted. This is a pair, the male is behind in the background and the female is in the foreground (the one in focus). I watched this pair with a closed circuit television system I setup. It's in full TV quality color so I could see details--the male was not killed or eaten by the female. He left after mating. This often happens more times then not in the spider world. People just have to find the hype of the negative so they spread all kind of trash about spiders and snakes and other creatures with a bad reputation. It's sad, but someday, many years from now, we may learn to live with nature.



She will wait--and he will wait--but eventually they get together. My VCR started to eat tapes so I never got it on tape. Too bad, that is a rare event to photograph mating spiders.

The male, you can't see his Palps (male reproductive organs) that he has pre-filled before he goes "to town". He will wonder with pretty bad eyesight and only a tactile and chemical sense that he knows. If in his wondering he gets very lucky, he will find a female's web. If she is not interested he must be ready to jump with his security drop line--but to be sure--he taps out a secret code that tells her he is looking for love not war.

CAMPING ALONE and The Sandhills Hornet

"The Dalles"
If I picked a picture that would show the great views out here--it would be something like this. One thing about living out here is the sun and mountains make for incredible views and colors. Just outside on my deck I can see for several miles all the way to Washington State--seen here in this picture shot through a long lens. These are mountains--a long ways away. I do love the views out here.


This shot is towards Portland down the Columbia river. The sun paints these mountain views in sometimes breathtaking ways. If you are a dedicated photographer--get up a weird hours and know you only have a few minutes to get a shot like this. Often by the time I get to my camera I've lost the shot because the sun has changed position or a cloud has quickly moved in. A nice shot can last less then 5 or 10 min out here.


Here is a more realistic view. This is what I see right of my porch here--in my house--out here in The Dalles. As I said, this place can be incredible. Here I had to take this shot quickly and all manual--I think the sun shines for about 10-15min like this before it goes behind the ridgeline behind me here.

I HAVE TONS of shots from my recent trip. I went on a 24 hour one day and one night photo-survey in the middle of nowhere. You won't ever see me at any camp grounds. In order to get decent pictures I have to get away from dogs and people. So I setup camp sometimes in dangerous places to get the shots of insects and spiders that are just not compatible with people. Those pay to camp places are to me like another Motel 6. I can't stand having to worry about other people, theft, and all that crap. I have TONS of shots to process before I can show you that trip I took a couple weeks ago---so checkout this incredible tiny Hornet. It is literally half-sized. I know very little about them and was able to snap a few shots before it flew away. These hornets are probably not a very common problem for people.

This hornet is literally half-sized as I said, it's only about 1.5cm or there about. Not aggressive, I was able to get in range. It is not a "baby hornet" as they emerge from there hives fully grown.


I took as many shots as I could get-a few of them turned out well. I have no idea where this shy hornet lives but I would love to find out. I doubt it is seriously aggressive. It is probably more like the somewhat-timid Sandhills hornet. Sadly people see those and think they are all dangerous and terrible like the far more aggressive yellow jackets. The tiny reclusive HORNET (ABOVE) is NOT one of the YELLOW JACKETS (below) and I do not believe it poses any serious risk to people.



I recently had to have a huge yellow jacket hive removed from my house. It became so bad that the City was going to force me to destroy it. I felt terrible because I love nature so much--but I had absolutely no choice. I made an effort to do away with them as soon as I noticed them but was unable to do so. Half of my wall is now full of bug-toxins. It makes me sick but at least I know it was not my choice. A bee-suit costs about $500--the only way I could have removed the hive and seen the queen. HORNETS are different from YELLOW JACKETS. The two often get mixed up. . And I nearly was able to touch a nest without being attacked with the local hornets here. This species of Hornet probably lives in areas that are not frequented by people. There are many species of small wasps and bees that do not effect people or rarely effect people exist. Don't over-react to a nest but if you have a huge buzzing hazard the city will make you remove it if you don't. That I can't stand sometimes. These things are really neat but they sting baddy. The one thing I do not agree with is the use of pesticides in any form. I was forced to remove this nest after shooting these pictures.


This was a really relaxed bee, iridescent and incredibly let me take nearly 20 shots of it. It did not fly away and I actually got tired of shooting it! That does not happen very often!



I used my closed Circuit TV system built out of a flip up video viewer and an old television camera that lets me watch spiders or anything else from at least 50 feet away. The male is in the background--blurry here due to depth of field. The female is in the foreground. This was nearly the last shot taken with my main macro lens. A short spill of Gatorade probably was the cause of it to lock at f16 and slowly stop working entirely. It's one very expensive lens--I am upset about it but very glad I bought a couple of cameras for backup. One is a super-zoom and the other is a highly technical Cannon compact which has everything from time-laps to very good in camera cropping. --but there are other ways to see things live and record them.

(BELOW) Now you get an idea of scale here--I could have zoomed into the spiders far more but I had to leave the whole web open to watch them. I did not get it on tape--but they did mate and the female is now going to have an egg sack when she's large. I know she did not eat the male because she gained no weight. He stayed by her web for several days and then apparently just left after they mated. It's incredible this very tiny and harmless house spider was able to find a mate at all. The male found her web--and shared it for a few days. If you see one of these in your house or basement--let it be! They are HARMLESS and will eat ants as well as other "pest" insect species. The monitor below shows the two tiny spiders so I can watch them when I am not in the bathroom from a distance--they are way to small to be seen unless you watch the screen. These are the pipes below my sink.


My closed Circuit TV system I rigged up with a 50ft telephone wire. Amazingly there is no noticeable noise and the picture is very clear. I could connect sound from this old TV camera but don't need to. It's a TV camera with far higher resolution that what you see in banks and small stores, it can operate continuously without needing a tape or anything but an outlet and does not require a battery. I can watch what's going on outside all day. The old TV camera does not have night vision, but I am really glad to have it as you can see here I can watch spiders from a distance. That's why I put it together in the first place. I could watch the bathroom in of course, REAL TIME (as it happens--live, that is what closed circuit TV is) from my computer area on screen shown here. The old TV camera was a gift and basically this system cost me next to nothing unless you count the video monitor and disk reader which I got from my mom a few years ago.

It's a really good idea to learn as much as you can because that knowledge can come in handy in the future. Without my electronics training--it would have been completely impossible to have closed circuit TV in my house or on my lights outside (what I built it for) let alone one in TV quality color. Buying a system like that even with low-res is way out of my budget. Building it myself cost me basically nothing because I know how and already had the stuff. I collect lots of junk and keep it on hand for ideas like this I know might happen.

This bee looks deceptively big. In fact, it is smaller then a honey bee. A little fat for a sweat be but that is almost certainly what it is. I need to spend some more time getting names for the insects I keep forgetting to look up. It takes a great deal of work to bring this stuff to you. I have to downsize the pictures, write this text in my word processor program, paste each caption in separately because my high-security Internet protection does not let spell-check work here. When it's all said and done on average--it takes me at least an hour per-picture to do this even with very small captions because I like to post lots of new pictures and not just one. I am a bit obsessive to say the least about Internet fears. To rebuild my main data-base would have been nearly impossible but now I have several hard-disks and a new DVD-RW DL drive. That is the latest in Light Scribe technology. You get twice the amount of data onto one side of a CD. The data is stored in these 10$ (approx) disks is not compressed and works by focusing on a different deeper layer on the disk. So two layers can be accessed by how the laser focuses. It’s awesome because I can nearly store 9GB on one disk but they are too expensive when it comes down to the basics so I usually use regular DVD-Rs.


This is a shot I am proud of. The ant here is less then 4mm long. This is a crop and done with my Minolta backup digital camera. The original has incredible detail and even cropped could be printed higher then 8x10' even as cropped as this. My high-def laptop screen gives me a very good idea of how well prints will turn out. Matching qualities to prints I can be very sure about myself when I go to make prints of how well it will do. (generally) I was told I was pretty dumb for buying a couple of backup cameras--but I was right, one big digital SLR is not all you need especially when it breaks down.

This tiny sweat be was really nice to me--acting as if it wants to be photographed I took dozens of flash pictures of her from several angles. She was un-harmed and I think what slowed her down was the cool air. It's feeling like winter here.

In this view you can nearly see all five or so eyes. Most insects have 3 extra simple eyes used for navigation. The two main big eyes are more or less there vision--but three eyes on top of there heads allow them to tell where the sun is in the sky.

Another shot with a bit more detail in other places. Notice the wings--they do get battered over a bees lifetime. This sweat bee is only about 7mm or so.

A very small fly I got near one of my lights. I have found a number of species I wonder about. When was the last serious entomological survey done out here?

MORE SHOTS FROM A SECRET SPOT of mine for camping. This area is right on a game trail and is ideal of wildlife shots of all kinds. From birds to deer to insects in and around the near-by creek that runs all year. It is an incredible place I will now continue to go out there again ASAP--I love it out here. This is no camp-spot for people who need necessities or comforts. You have to hike in fast from the road--not very far but with lots of camera gear it can be hard. I usually go armed just in case of animal or human problems but really have never had any in really remote or unspoiled places.

A full moon long exposure. I happened to be out there in a complete full moon. I should have brought my Minolta for a close view. It was beautiful out there and despite fears most people might have--it regenerated me. I love it out there. It's mainly high desert with one thing very important for insects and spiders--a creek.
Watter skippers--these guys are cool to watch. They eat poor insects that fall into the watter and can stride like this because they distribute weight not heavy enough to break surface tension. Water can be compared a bit like glass--you can stand on it without it breaking but if you jump you will break-through if it is thin--a better example might be an iced over pond.

The creek--I walked right out into the middle of it to get several natures capes. Very dangerous for my gear but I had to do it. THERE IS MORE TO COME ON THIS TRIP!

Wildlife was everywhere and this whole area was an untouched nature scape. I was completely enthralled and entirely alone. I can't wait to go back but it's getting cold and I may have to wait until next year as it gets rapidly colder and I have some serious camera problems. I need my grandma or ask a friend to drive me out there and then pick me up---for one thing I can't drive out there and park anywhere. I DO NOT camp in posted "no trespassing" And often do not make fires (generally). This is what camping really is. When your cell phone does not work anymore.

A regular camp-ground is about as interesting to me as Motel 6. I have a few ways to defend myself against angry wildlife but I worry far more about people! I don't worry about it much at all because I'm in the middle of nowhere. I'd take my chances with mountain lions anyway before I would with people in pay-to-camp-campgrounds! A note here-- camping alone can be dangerous and also can be psychologically difficult--even for one night. Especially during the night. For some people it is frightening and those who are not ready should not try it. It's almost like being on a drug to go out in the middle of nowhere or to a remote distant place and camp by yourself. You can't be sure how that will effect you until you go. Definitely have lots of camping experience with other people as I did, before you ever try to trek out on your own.

COME BACK! MANY MORE SHOTS OF MY TRIP THEN THESE including the crayfish shots and a spider called the “big jaw spider” for good reason! I went on this photo-camping trip for one day and one night in the middle of nowhere. You won't see me in any of those regular camp-grounds. I like to be able to leave my stuff in my tent! People and dogs and animals change and or scare wildlife off. So I camp near creeks wherever I can find a spot and hope I don't get shot by somebody for camping on there land (that would be murder in Oregon). I had a very good trip this time after my grandma picked me up the next day. I made a video record but I also took dozens of still pictures I want to post ASAP. I will get to those shots soon and do a special on this incredible trip. I have to do some work on the pictures first.