Red Palm Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus)

Yousef Alhabshi · Post by **Yousef Alhabshi** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 2:22 pm

Hi,

I haven't done any serious stacking for the past 7 months & just recently I managed to receive an interesting subject -at least to me?- which just pushed me to get back again.

I managed to do few stacking for most of this weevil parts.. unfortunately, haven't got enough time to process with the rest of the series.. therefore i'm posting what I managed to finish.

Palm Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) by Yousef Al-Habshi, on Flickr
Stack of 250 shots using JML21 & Nikon D800E

Red Palm Weevil Antenna (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) by Yousef Al-Habshi, on Flickr
Stack of 86 shots using Mitu10X & Nikon D800E

Palm Weevil - Leg by Yousef Al-Habshi, on Flickr
Stack of 77 shots using Mitu10X & Nikon D800E

Red Palm Weevil Claws (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) by Yousef Al-Habshi, on Flickr
Stack of 59 shots using Nikon20X & Nikon D800E

Luckily, I found mites on this weevil.. i'll post a new topic with these shots since I believe it's related to one of Rik's earlier topics.

Cheers,
Yousef

JH · Post by JH » Sun Jan 05, 2014 2:33 pm

Interesting insect, and very good pictures!
Regards Jörgen

Rikisub · Post by **Rikisub** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 2:53 pm

Absolutely amazing shots!

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 3:07 pm

Wow! Excellent work.

This beetle is a nasty pest. I posted some info and (worse) pictures some time ago:
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 2971#62971

At summer we catch dozens each day with a feromone trapp in an attempt to save our palm trees

Yousef Alhabshi · Post by **Yousef Alhabshi** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 9:18 pm

Thank you guys for your inputs & cheerful words.

@Pau
During my visit to Spain, Javier (Seta666) told me how palms were effected by this pest. Since I wasn't aware about this pest, it surprised me to know that it was globally spread!

Here in my place it's a bit controlled.. that's why it took me about 18 months to find it (actually I couldn't find it in my city.. a friend of mine found it on a dead palm in another city & send it to me).

canonian · Post by **canonian** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 2:28 am

Truly excellent pictures Yousef. I wonder how you lighted these.
The first one is my favourite and shows what good glass in good hands can produce.
The Mitu's give tremendous detail.
250 shots? Did you stack all shots in one go or used slabbing?

Yousef Alhabshi · Post by **Yousef Alhabshi** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:34 am

Thanks Fred.. you always encourage me with your kind words.
The lighting is my usual method.. 2 flashes and a piece(s) of papers to defuse the lights.
Although I do own Mitu5X, I keep prefering the JML over.. well I believe both have advantages & disadvantages after all.

As for the weevil shot, I did stack the 250 shots in one go. One manual slab was needed to retrieve the details for part of the antenna (where both antennas cross). It was an easy one as no hairs was invloved here. Somehow, I think I'm not practising the slabbing correctly although I tried many methods here.. the final results of stacking the slabs is always horrible to me!
I'll try doing the slabbing again soon.. & i'll try to figure out what was my wrong steps.

BTW, I'm using Bill Eldridge's Beta slab application which works great.. it's just me that I need to have some time to get the right result.

jazzper · Post by **jazzper** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 12:30 pm

Yousef Alhabshi wrote:.. it's just me that I need to have some time to get the right result.

Yousef, your work is allways perfect, slabbing or no slabbing - it's awesome!

Please tell me, which 20x Nikon you are using.

abpho · Post by **abpho** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:48 pm

Wow! Those are stellar. Good work Yousef.

SteveGreen1953 · Post by **SteveGreen1953** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 7:08 pm

Very nicely done. Bravo!!!

Saul · Post by **Saul** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:46 pm

Incredible photos, Yousef ! Last one is my favorite ! Perfect postprocessing !

Yousef Alhabshi · Post by **Yousef Alhabshi** » Tue Jan 07, 2014 3:05 am

Thank you guys for your kind inputs

jazzper wrote:Please tell me, which 20x Nikon you are using.

Hi Jesper, I'm using Nikon BD Plan 20x/0.4 210/0 objective.. & thank you for your kind words

Planapo · Post by **Planapo** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:39 am

Aesthetically highly appealing and technically perfect!

It's always a pleasure to look at your photos, Yousef!

--Betty

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 9:15 am

Wow, amazing work!

Rogelio

harisA · Post by **harisA** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:59 am

Amazing images....This bug has eliminated most of the palm trees here in Greece.They are very widely spread.I once found one alive inside my house!