Close-ups of insects

November 21, 2008 10:31 PM

The Insect Close-ups Flickr Pool is full of fascinating pictures. There are all kinds of wonderful images to be found, of spiders, ladybugs, hornets, aphids, grasshoppers, worms, water striders and those superstars of the insect world, bees and butterflies. You can also search a map for pictures by location. If you want to take your own bug photographer Mark Plonsky has written a short how-to guide. He has taken some pretty great photographs of insects himself.
posted by Kattullus (14 comments total)

The key to the how-to guide--and the key to all insect close-ups: reversed lenses. Just do a Flickr search under the "close-ups of insects" group linked above for the query term "reversed" and see what I mean.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:11 AM on November 22, 2008

Well it's not all insects, per se, but it's 100% full of win and awesome.


Or fear and loathing, depending on how you feel about the creeping things that creepeth upon the ground.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:39 AM on November 22, 2008

This is relevant to your interests, if your interests include looking really closely at land dwelling exoskeleton having type critters and their fascinating ways.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:42 AM on November 22, 2008

I like the way he's blended photos with different planes of focus together, to create images with most of the insect clearly defined rather than just one part such as the eyes, or mouth. I'm also very impressed that most of the photos were taken without a tripod, and with relatively old and inexpensive hardware.
posted by BinaryApe at 3:38 AM on November 22, 2008

Have you noticed that more close-up you go, the creepier they get?
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:02 AM on November 22, 2008

The post is so full of awesome!

And creepy...

*keeps scratching*
posted by gomichild at 5:01 AM on November 22, 2008

Including pictures by metafilter's own Ambrosia Voyeur.

OK so I have an XTi with a 1.4/50. So the easiest way to play with this is to buy a diopter? Which one?
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 5:14 AM on November 22, 2008

Oh, cool! I added some of mine too to the pool. Creepy crawlies inducing for sure, particularly that one by Ambrosia Voyeur - I have a total phobia for ants...
posted by gemmy at 7:39 AM on November 22, 2008

My wife will enjoy this.

I was telling a co-worker about the wool carder bees living in our front yard a while back, and did a GIS on them. I remember thinking that some of the pictures on the first page of images looked just like the one's she took. Then I clicked the link and found that there was a reason for that.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:32 AM on November 22, 2008

This one must have gotten caught by a spider...D'oh!
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 8:54 AM on November 22, 2008

I love this one. I think it would fit in one of those flowery desk calendars you always see in the cubes of aging pink-collar petty bureaucrats.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:02 AM on November 22, 2008

Thanks, guys. Yeah contraption, my consort, put some up, too. Sorry for swamping it, but I definitely had to add some to that pool. Thanks for the great links.

I have but a shitty little digital camera, but it manages some decent macrophotography, so I get to be the one who's looking at the bark and the ground when everybody else is getting the same shots of the mountain. I like that.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:36 PM on November 22, 2008

Ooh, nice. I put a couple pictures in the pool.

Not that I am in any way trying to drive traffic to my flickr account.

*Desperately watching referral stats*
posted by backseatpilot at 3:30 PM on November 22, 2008

Those beetle's make me hungry!
posted by BoldStepDesign at 5:34 PM on November 22, 2008