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Mantis & assassin bug(?)
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Mantis & assassin bug(?)

by David Thomas

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted September 27, 2010131 views5 comments
Recently a condo neighbor said we had a nice praying mantis in our garden. I found this bug hanging on to its middle leg. Although cropped a lot to show just the bug, the image is still pretty sharp, although noisy. The bug moved around for less than a minute and then flew away.

I am not skilled in noise reduction -- would it help, and any suggestions?

Canon 40D, 90mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/10, ISO 800, 1/160 sec, hand held.

Thanks, Dave Thomas
Leesburg, Virginia

Comments

5 comments
Comment posted by Peter May on September 27, 2010 at 6:03 PM
It is an assassin bug, probably Pselliopus cinctus. See http://bugguide.net/node/view/136450/bgimage for a comparison photo.

Can't help with the NR question - I don't use it myself.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 7 Posts, 239 Comments
Comment posted by Gary Yeoh on September 27, 2010 at 9:56 PM
David:
Colorful bug. The noise is high due to the high iso and possible also the crop (was it a high crop?). You could try noise reduction in PS but I find that not very effective. Others have use other pluggin such as Noise Ninja but I have no experience with that.
Registered on September 1, 2009, 588 Posts, 8184 Comments
Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on September 28, 2010 at 5:06 AM
Dave, I bet this is a very large crop, and the image just cnanot handle this much magnification.
Noise is magnified with large crops.
I find Topaz De-Noise 5 excellent (there is a 30-day free trial) but it won't help a lot here.
By using a lot of NR, one loses definition also.

sandy r
Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments
Comment posted by Mike Moats on September 28, 2010 at 6:48 AM
Hey Dave, nice sharp details on this critter. Nik Software has a good noise reduction program.

To all our macro contribitors, our image comments have been up lately, and I would like to thank all those who have been taking the time to comment on images. Thanks and keep em coming
Registered on October 20, 2004, 892 Posts, 6324 Comments
Comment posted by David Thomas on September 28, 2010 at 11:14 AM
Thanks to all the helpful comments to this, just my second NPN post.

Peter -- thanks for the assassin bug ID, almost certainly correct.

For info, here is the original photo. The crop was indeed very large

Dave, Leesburg, Viriginia.
Registered on June 21, 2010, 30 Posts, 178 Comments