Meet the Mantids

I took some shots of some pet mantis’s on Friday evening.  Currently we have 4 mantis’s, all of different types.  After shooting them (indoors on a table with a small amount of moss/leaves as background), the following shots were found to be the better ones.  Hope to shoot them again outside in some natural light soon, which I think will look even better.  I finished off by creating a couple of montages from the shots, which I will show you first.

Mantis Montage
Mantis Montage

This first one is my favourite, mainly due to it’s simplicity, I also think it looks a bit like a movie alien poster.  I can’t claim to be original on this as I did see another mantis keepers shots done similarly last year.

Mantis Montage 2
Mantis Montage 2

This one is the second montage, with all four of them in it.

Now for some shots, all taken at ISO 400 – 1/250sec F11 with Flash.  The head closeups are on my MPE-65mm, the others all on the Canon 100mm Macro lens.

Firstly some of the Ghost Mantis.

Head of Ghost MantisCanon EOS 50D (65mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Head of Ghost Mantis
Ghost MantisCanon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Ghost Mantis

Then the Springbok Mantis

Springbok MantisCanon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Springbok Mantis

The Dead Leaf Mantis

Head of Dead Leaf MantisCanon EOS 50D (65mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Head of Dead Leaf Mantis
Dead Leaf MantisCanon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Dead Leaf Mantis

The Twig Mantis

Head of a Twig Mantis (x2 Magnification)Canon EOS 50D (65mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Head of a Twig Mantis (x2 Magnification)
Head of a Twig MantisCanon EOS 50D (65mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Head of a Twig Mantis
Twig MantisCanon EOS 50D (100mm, f/11, 1/250 sec, ISO400)
Twig Mantis

The last shot of the twig mantis is in fact a four shot panoramic stitch.  I used the free Hugin Software to stitch these together.

4 Shot Panorama of a Twig Mantis
4 Shot Panorama of a Twig Mantis

Chris

I've been taking macro photography from 2004. I use both Canon film and digital cameras.

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