A Robber's Mug Shots

[Arlen]

Even though it's called a robber fly, its modus operandi often involves homocide.
(Hence its alternate sobriquet, assassin fly.)



                             

[luxborealis]

Fantastic work, Arlen.

I can imagine how painstaking it was to achieve that kind of clarity and detail and depth over such a small area. Well done!

Thanks for sharing.

[Bob_B]

I could not agree more with Terry. Jaw-dropping is the only adjective I can think of at the moment. Wow!

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I wouldn't want to meet that one in a dark alley!
Amazing images.

[John Koerner]

Nicely done

[Paulo Bizarro]

Creepy and fantastic.

[francois]

Both aesthetically and technically stunning.

[Otto Phocus]

Nice sharp picture and the first one is from an interesting angle. 

[Sean H]

These are beautiful, unveiling the world of macro-photography. At first, being mammal-centric, I used to find insects ugly, but thanks to macro-photography I can appreciate them, or even parts of them. No doubt parts of our body would look strange when viewed close up. It must have been a lot of work to get these but the B&W treatment is great and these may be gallery-worthy. I would be curious about the compound eyes if you have a colour shot to share. Can you tell us what equipment you used?

[Arlen]

Thanks to all of you for your kind words. Much appreciated.

Sean, macro photography of insects opened up a whole new wonder world for me. All are very interesting when viewed in detail; I have a stereoscopic microscope which takes you in much further, in 3D. And some are beautiful, even by the standards of most folks who normally shudder at the thought of a bug.

Like you, I find the compound eyes particularly fascinating. Enough so that I included a chapter on insect vision in a book I wrote about aquatic insects:  BugWater






All of these images were captured with an Olympus E-M1 and Oly 65 mm f/2.8 macro lens.

[Sean H]

Hi Arlen, thanks for sharing all the information. I was impressed with what I could see in the book (congratulations btw). There are photos of water coursing through rivers that are quite nice. Can you provide a link to the microscope too please? I am curious as I was also thinking about a digital microscope for some macro-work on a variety of specimens - insects and parts of plants; chemical reactions and crystals.

Thanks to all of you for your kind words. Much appreciated.

Sean, macro photography of insects opened up a whole new wonder world for me. All are very interesting when viewed in detail; I have a stereoscopic microscope which takes you in much further, in 3D. And some are beautiful, even by the standards of most folks who normally shudder at the thought of a bug.

Like you, I find the compound eyes particularly fascinating. Enough so that I included a chapter on insect vision in a book I wrote about aquatic insects:  BugWater



All of these images were captured with an Olympus E-M1 and Oly 65 mm f/2.8 macro lens.

[John Koerner]

Nice work on the book 

[Arlen]

Thank you Sean and John. It was a lot of work, but I had a great deal of fun researching, writing and photographing subjects for that book.

Sean, my microscope is a very old one, that I got many years ago from a friend. Not sure what brand (I don't see a label on it). It looks and has specs similar to the one here. I use it mostly to see the almost invisibly small body parts that are often necessary to identify bugs to genus and species levels. However, there are much cheaper ones that will suffice, so you don't need to spend as much as the linked one costs.

[KBStudio]

Amazing as always Arlen!