Very good picture.

These are cool little bugs, with interesting textures. They also tend to sit very still for long periods, and so are good subjects. You can even focus stack a live one, as you show nicely here.

I have no idea. The facets you see on a compound eye are just the visible part of an 'ommatidium', which is a tiny light collecting organ with a cuticular lens at the surface and several kinds of cells that extend deep into the eye. Among these cells will be pigment cells that help channel the light...

!!

Very well done.

That should block most parasitoids, but you will want to have it fit snugly on the stem. There are tiny wasps that can get thru though.

I regularly see mourning cloak butterflies ( Nymphalis antiopa ), but they are usually in full flight. They are a bit different from other butterflies in that they do not tend to visit flowers. Rather, they prefer to sit up on tree trunks and drink sap. This one was just taking a rare moments' rest,...

Working out well! Odds are it will be parasitized, but fingers crossed. Your use of a plamp attached directly to the tripod is giving me an idea to try a modification of what I do, which right now is with a plamp attached to a separate pole. I can move the camera around it but its a bit fussy as it ...

Nice result! I'm doing this more often too (take a few pix that focus on different parts, then stack). Also the composition is interesting, which is something else I've been meaning to do more often. That is, not putting the critter in the center but off to the side.

Terrific as always.

It is pretty hard to go wrong with a macro lens in terms of sharpness. All are terrific. Lenses in the 100mm range are very versatile in terms of giving you the framing that you want in most situations without resorting to extension tubes to get to 1:1. Although I have not used shorter macro lenses ...

Very nicely done!

Good stuff. I thought I had researched the heck out of the Panasonic versus Olympus m 4/3 bodies for these these features. Somehow the point that Panasonic also does regular focus bracketing did not make itself known to me. I thought it was all about recording in video.

You have a good eye for finding the right moment!

I thought to start showing some older pictures of insects that I had taken over the years. This post will focus on the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), but of course this can include any stage in life. First up is the delicately colored larva of the copper underwing moth, Amphipyra pyramidoides ...