First thing first, if you want a good how-to article on the basics of macro photography composition, head over to dpreview’s featured article, “Composition Basics in Macro Photography“.

In that article, there is a mention of “lead room” — a composition concept based on the idea that there should be a certain extra space in the direction in which the animal eyes are looking. In this photo below, however, the eyes is not the prominent feature of the photograph.

What applies here is the Rule of Thirds, that is, positioning the subject off-centre in a grid of three.

Dragonfly

When shooting insects in their environment, be mindful of the many distractions around them. A blade of grass intruding into the picture, for instance, like the one shown below, can result in unwanted distraction, making the photo look busy and ugly.

Blady grass distraction

Here is a series of photographs of a mud dauber wasp tending to its nest that is hanging under the floor of a wooden house at a remote village in Borneo. Unlike other wasp species, mud dauber wasps or also known as dirt wasps are solitary wasps. They go about their chores alone and seldom aggressive.

The mother wasp builds its nest, comprising a single or several cells, often under the planks of wooden houses, ensuring them of a cool and dry place. This also means that taking pictures of them without any lighting assistance would be difficult because of the seclusion.

These pictures were taken with a Pentax K-7 and Pentax DFA 100mm f2.8 Macro WR lens. A Metz flashgun with reduced intensity was used to illuminate the wasp and the nest.

Mud dauber wasp tending to its nest

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These two photos are by Dave of Work Hard & Starve, taken with a Nikon D90 and an old manual focus Tamron SP 90mm f2.5 macro lens. Images from the lens are silky smooth and sharp at the same time!

Thanks Dave for sharing this awesome shots, enlightening us of the capabilities of the manual Tamron 90mm macro lens and for allowing readers of Macro PB to discover your portfolio.

You think you have one or two macro photographs to share? Let’s talk macro!

This macro photo of a wasp is not what I want it to be. I got the eyes right but not the depth of field; it’s too narrow for comfort. Besides, I found the blurry the pink flower in foreground distracting. Assuming the wasp poses for you longer than a few seconds so that you could compose properly, what would you do to improve this shot? Here is the exif data of this photo.

Speaking of macro photography, Digital Photo has recently published an article on how to shoot macro, what needs to be done, the tools to achieve the shot and how to utilise camera functions to shoot macro.

I was exploring the backyard recently when I came across this strange species of a winged ant.

I’m not sure whether this is really a rare species, scientifically speaking, but this is definitely the first time that I came across this strangely-formed ant species despite all the years of growing up among the jungle of Borneo. Shall I call this the Long Borneoan Winged Ant?

Video was taken with Pentax K-7 and the smc Pentax D FA f2.8 100mm Macro WR lens, with the camera set on tripod. There was a slight breeze at that time so the footage appears a bit shaky.

I’ve posted pictures of this ant at various insect forums. Let’s see what we can come up with.

My brother who owns a Nikon D300 took this photo of ants working together to build their nest by stitching together several leaves. This is how they do it… amazing little ant universe.

Close up pictures of a Dryocampa rubicunda moth or rosy maple moth, except that there are no maple trees in my part of the world. Maybe this is a tropical version of the same moth.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Tadpole, we now know the insect is not a cicada but rather, a horned treehopper. Original posting:

Actually I don’t really know the name of this species of cicada. I am not even sure whether this is a species of cicada although it does fly like one. I call it “tiny Borneo horned cicada” because it is tiny, about 8mm in length, it has what looks like horns and it is photographed in Borneo.

Anyone with etymology, err… I mean entomology background should help identify this insect for the benefit of humankind. Who knows, these could be the first ever pictures of a species no one thought existed until an erstwhile unknown photographer captures it from an undisclosed location in Borneo.

[tag]Insect macro photography[/tag]. This one is taken with Canon Powershot SX1 IS with the [tag]Raynox DCR-250[/tag] [tag]super macro conversion lens[/tag] attached.