Went looking for birds and found......

[Gordon Large]

....these hibiscus flowers on the shore of a small lake. A few days ago I posted some flower pictures taken with my 300/4. I went a step further with these - they were taken with a 200-400/2.8VR and a TC-17 on my D2x. Not your basic macro set-up, but perfect for large flowers at a distance. And thanks to a mistake I made uploading the second image to PBase, I was again amazed at the resolution of the D2x. Here is the first image...

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...and here is the second:

View attachment 13750

The second image is a 40% crop from the original NEF. (That means that 60% of the image remains, right? I never know.) When I uploaded the cropped image, I forgot to shrink it to the 800 pixel width you see above. Here is part of the image I saw at full size, here shown as an 800x800 pixel section of the original 12.4 million pixels. That's a 95% crop!

View attachment 13751

Isn't that a beetle on the leaf?

Gordon

 

[PGB]

Gordon,

It is a beetle. We have so many of these. Around here they are called Japanese Beetles. They eat everything. When they are not eating they are mating.

I have Crepe Myrtle trees and they are absolutely covered in these things.

Thanks,

 

[greyflash]

Love the first image and the resolution of the subsequent images is amazing. Fortunatly we have no (or very few) beetles here in St. George, Utah. Those things are voracious.

 

[Gordon Large]

Gordon,

It is a beetle. We have so many of these. Around here they are called Japanese Beetles. They eat everything. When they are not eating they are mating.

I have Crepe Myrtle trees and they are absolutely covered in these things.

Thanks,

Hi Patrick -

Since you couldn't "hear" my tone of voice when I asked if it is a beetle, there was no way for you to know that I was kidding in order to highlight the resolution. I knew it was a beetle, but I didn't know it was a Japanese beetle. We have them up here (Philly) too, and they do all the same nasty things.

Gordon

 

[Gordon Large]

Love the first image and the resolution of the subsequent images is amazing. Fortunatly we have no (or very few) beetles here in St. George, Utah. Those things are voracious.

Thanks Gordon. It was a fun and successful experiment, although not the easiest way to shoot "macros". I guess you are lucky not to have J. beetles, but don't you have mountain lions and bears and stuff? I'll take the beetles..... :lol:

Gordon

 

[sommer]

Love the hibiscus! Loathe the Japanese beetle.....grrrrrrrr. Those things have made it their mission to skeletonize half my plants this year. I can't bring myself to buy one of those bag traps though. My neighbor has one in plain view, and I've decided a bag full of dead Japanese beetles is more disgusting than having them eat up my plants

 

[Gordon Large]

Love the hibiscus! Loathe the Japanese beetle.....grrrrrrrr. Those things have made it their mission to skeletonize half my plants this year. I can't bring myself to buy one of those bag traps though. My neighbor has one in plain view, and I've decided a bag full of dead Japanese beetles is more disgusting than having them eat up my plants

Hi Sommer -

I agree with you on all points. I had one of those beetle bags once, and it's even worse than you think - a lot of my beetles were still alive and making threatening noises. We need an emoticon for Argghh! BTW, I'm a little late on this, but welcome to the Cafe. It's a great place, and I hope you are enjoying it.

Gordon

 

[CrystallP]

Gordon,

I knew right away that your hibiscus was shot with the D2X. It has it's own amazing footprint. The crispness is amazing. I have struggled with this plant all summer because of the long stamen. Imagery like this reminds me that I am really looking forward to the D200 or whatever Nikon decides to roll out with next. ARGHH!

Loved your image, hope you post more. As far as the beetle...well they have successfully eaten most of the ornamental trees on my street. Last year billions of cicadas, this year a particularly nasty beetle invasion. Yikes!

 

[Gordon Large]

Gordon,

I knew right away that your hibiscus was shot with the D2X. It has it's own amazing footprint. The crispness is amazing. I have struggled with this plant all summer because of the long stamen. Imagery like this reminds me that I am really looking forward to the D200 or whatever Nikon decides to roll out with next. ARGHH!

Loved your image, hope you post more. As far as the beetle...well they have successfully eaten most of the ornamental trees on my street. Last year billions of cicadas, this year a particularly nasty beetle invasion. Yikes!

Thanks Crystall. You are right about the amazing crispness of the D2x. But what I was surprised about in these images and some I posted last week is how beautifully long lenses can work for flower shots. I was planning on a macro, but now I'm rethinking whether I really need it. Sorry about those beetles. No concilation, but we have them here in PA too.

Gordon

 

[CrystallP]

I have tried the 70-200VR + 500D combination for macro work. It produced awesome imagery, but I still prefer the 70-180mm micro lens for my flowers. I also like hand holding the 60mm micro for flowers whenever possible. I really use the macro lenses as closeup lenses because I usually don't add the 6T to achieve 1:1.