Macro Safari

Usually, I carry a “blimey, that’s a big one” lens the size of which passersby seem to have no reservations in commenting on. It does have a focal length of 600mm, but it’s tiny compared to some of the fast professional sports and wildlife prime lenses of similar focal length out there.

Anyway, today I took a tiny lens. A 90mm prime, macro 1:1, lens. It means you have to get closer to the subject to get the shot, which means it’s no good for photographing birds perched, flying, or otherwise, except if you’re somehow in a hide or otherwise well hidden. But, I wanted to capture a few of the mini beasts in the countryside around us: A few micro moths maybe, the butterflies fluttering by, hoverflies, May flies, beetles etc.

And, I did. I revisited the Field Scabious on the banks of the Cottenham Lode and sat down with metallica (the Brassy Long-horn moth, Nemophora metallica), snapped some Skippers, some Common Red Soldier Beetles (Ragonycha fulva), and a couple of Swollen-thighed Beetles (Oedemera nobilis).