Charlie, thanks for the additional info. I noticed the part about "Canon 35/2.8 photomacrography lens" in your initial posting, but somehow I never made the leap to realizing that this probably meant a tabletop setup. The lighting may have been serendipitous, but it was your artistic choice to keep ...

Rik "I'm intrigued by the blue reflection on the right eye and antenna. I don't see how your standard backlighting would do that, so I'm wondering if you're trying out some new illumination scheme. Care to elaborate?" Isn't it just a reflection of the blue background in the eye? DaveW, I'm thinking...

Yet another URL to go on my list of "favorite pictures by Charlie"!

Lovely -- thanks!

--Rik

Aw, man, you guys are just way too good! :D Yep, cicada. Here's a wider shot, for those who don't know these beasts so well yet. http://www.janrik.net/MiscSubj/Cicada20060819/IMG_0947_small.jpg Notice that the ocelli look very different in this last shot -- red versus glowing yellow. That puzzled me...

"Snick!" (That's the sound of the already high bar being raised yet another notch.) Very, very nice! I'm intrigued by the blue reflection on the right eye and antenna. I don't see how your standard backlighting would do that, so I'm wondering if you're trying out some new illumination scheme. Care t...

I've often wondered what makes the stripes on these beasts. Now I know. It's just hair -- alternating sections of bare and hairy cuticle! I leave it to you to figure out what the beast is. http://www.janrik.net/MiscSubj/Cicada20060819/IMG_0619-0732_75pctAndCrop.jpg Whoops, that's too hard. Let's mak...

Looking good, George! I'll be interested to see how this one evolves. Where'd you pick up that 1mm/rev table?

--Rik

Excellent! The space currently missing in "eachother" is a bit of a distraction. Is that perhaps easy to fix?

--Rik

Or possibly Strauzia (Diptera:Tephritidae), http://bugguide.net/node/view/36887 . Same family, different genus, assuming that False Peacock Flies means Chaetorellia succinea , as Google suggests. Charlie, have you checked with U.Washington to see if there's an entomologist there with local knowledge...

Tom, welcome to the forum! :D This is a most interesting picture -- the wings are like a stained-glass mosaic. Very nice! Shot with natural light, you say, and a tripod. Yes, most interesting... :-k I would speculate that you cast some spell over this creature, but then I would have to admit that I ...

Ken, that's a nice picture -- and a very nice touch to include the link to the sound file!

--Rik

I have a question...My camera only goes down to f8, I am probably not going to get too much DOF out of that right? Doug, Your f/8 is fine. That's because your camera has a small sensor. It turns out that what really matters for DOF is not F-number by itself, but rather F-number divided by sensor si...

Still might want to bring this to Chuck's attention if it bugged you enough to post about it here. I agree. My best guess is that somebody in repair did not take the time to understand that the problem was original and not just acquired dirt. There are other possibilities. But in any case, I'll bet...

this is a wild and beautiful planet that we're on. Yeah, isn't it, though? :D And what's getting better and better is our collective ability to capture really neat stuff and share it with each other. I can remember way back before the Web...but I try not to! :D By the way, I really ought to mention...

Tom, thanks for the info about video tools. It was very timely, as you can see by my other posting. I had not played with QuickTime Pro for quite a while -- long enough that my license had expired, but another $30 for a tool that solves a big problem is money well spent. That H.264 codec does work v...