Now there is a seller for the 60 mm macro if I ever saw one! Much less your camera skills :-)

Go create an account at www.BugGuide.net and submit it there, some volunteer should be able to tell you what kind of beetle you have AND your contributing to citizen science, they get the date and location information for the over all body of knowledge. Exceptional photographs are always welcome.

Scott Peden wrote:
> Now there is a seller for the 60 mm macro if I ever saw one! Much less your camera skills :-)
>
> Go create an account at www.BugGuide.net and submit it there, some volunteer should be able
> to tell you what kind of beetle you have AND your contributing to citizen science, they get
> the date and location information for the over all body of knowledge. Exceptional photographs
> are always welcome.
>
Excellent image, David. Is it just my eyes or is the focus centred on the wire (at a point that appears to be just below the nearer antenna) rather than the beetle itself. This is not a criticism of your work - with such a small subject, even with single point focussing this can happen too easily.

Scott Peden wrote:
> Now there is a seller for the 60 mm macro if I ever saw one! Much less your camera skills :-)
>
> Go create an account at www.BugGuide.net and submit it there, some volunteer should be able
> to tell you what kind of beetle you have AND your contributing to citizen science, they get
> the date and location information for the over all body of knowledge. Exceptional photographs
> are always welcome.
>

Thanks, Scott. I'm pleased tthat you enjoy it.

And thanks for the tip regarding Bug Guide. I'll definitely check them out.

superb macro !!

Ken Thomas wrote:
> Excellent image, David. Is it just my eyes or is the focus centred on the wire (at a point
> that appears to be just below the nearer antenna) rather than the beetle itself. This is not
> a criticism of your work - with such a small subject, even with single point focussing this
> can happen too easily.
>
Thanks, Ken. Your kind of criticism is most welcome. It's a compliment that you've looked so carefully at the photo.

It's hard to tell exactly where the plane of focus is - you may well be right. Ideally, I would focus on the insect's eye. In this case, the focus point is almost half the size of the insect, even though I was using the "small" focus point option. The challenge, of course, is that the depth of field is about .04". It amazes me that the camera did so well. This is my choice out of four exposures that I made. In the other three, the focus was somewhere other than on the insect. I think this one's pretty good, given that the individual facets (?) of the eye are visible.

I understand why people use tripods and even focus rails. This one was handheld and I had no good way to stabilize my fore-and-aft motion (within a tolerance of +/-0.02"), as I squeezed the shutter release. I need more practice!

I wonder if I'm seeing some diffraction. In his review of this lens, Ming Thein suggested that f/8 is about the limit to minimize diffraction and I made this exposure at f/11 (http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/09/21/olympus-60-2-8-macro/).

juliette gribnau wrote:
> superb macro !!
>
Thanks, Juliette.

And thanks for all the inspiration that your photos have provided!

Do you know how far the lens was from the beetle?

I have the 60mm also and I know how difficult it can be to get a tight focus.

Katrina Adams wrote:
> Do you know how far the lens was from the beetle?
>
> I have the 60mm also and I know how difficult it can be to get a tight focus.
>
I can only guess, now, but I would estimate about 15 cm.

Correction: I just checked the EXIF data for that image and it reports "Focus Distance: 0.2 m".

I didn't realize that it was recorded in the image file - learned something, today. Thanks! :-)

David Underwood wrote:
> Ken Thomas wrote:
> > Excellent image, David. Is it just my eyes or is the focus centred on the wire (at a point
> > that appears to be just below the nearer antenna) rather than the beetle itself. This is not
> > a criticism of your work - with such a small subject, even with single point focussing this
> > can happen too easily.
> >
> Thanks, Ken. Your kind of criticism is most welcome. It's a compliment that you've looked
> so carefully at the photo.
>
> It's hard to tell exactly where the plane of focus is - you may well be right. Ideally, I
> would focus on the insect's eye. In this case, the focus point is almost half the size of
> the insect, even though I was using the "small" focus point option. The challenge, of course,
> is that the depth of field is about .04". It amazes me that the camera did so well. This
> is my choice out of four exposures that I made. In the other three, the focus was somewhere
> other than on the insect. I think this one's pretty good, given that the individual facets
> (?) of the eye are visible.
>
> I understand why people use tripods and even focus rails. This one was handheld and I had
> no good way to stabilize my fore-and-aft motion (within a tolerance of +/-0.02"), as I squeezed
> the shutter release. I need more practice!
>
> I wonder if I'm seeing some diffraction. In his review of this lens, Ming Thein suggested
> that f/8 is about the limit to minimize diffraction and I made this exposure at f/11 (http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/09/21/olympus-60-2-8-macro/).
>
Your point regarding the focus point is what I tried to make in my comment. I prefer to take my macros hand-held - I prefer the flexibility and manoeuvrability. I used to be a lot better at it than I am at approaching 72 unfortunately. I don't know if you saw this one of mine http://myolympus.org/document.php?id=19688 It was handheld and I only had the one good shot out of four attempts. It's heavily cropped from http://myolympus.org/document.php?id=19689

Ken Thomas wrote:
> Your point regarding the focus point is what I tried to make in my comment. I prefer to take
> my macros hand-held - I prefer the flexibility and manoeuvrability. I used to be a lot better
> at it than I am at approaching 72 unfortunately. I don't know if you saw this one of mine
> http://myolympus.org/document.php?id=19688 It was handheld and I only had the one good shot
> out of four attempts. It's heavily cropped from http://myolympus.org/document.php?id=19689
>
Yes, I agree that hand-held macro photography makes sense for mobile subjects. I could imagine using a monopod, maybe, but I don't know that it would help with the fore-and-aft movement. I know what you mean about age - I'm almost a whole year younger than you. :-)

No, I hadn't seen your photo. It's very good, especially considering how much its cropped.