Tiny Mantis ID

[Gonodactylus]

Mine are housed in 1 liter cups - no circulation or filtration. They are fed live adult brine shrimp and the water changed three times a week. The oldest one in the lab I have had for three years. It was 12 mm when I collected it on Lizard Island and it is now 15 mm.

Roy

 

[prozz]

Are there any sexual dimorphisms in this species that may be easier to spot then the stick/spot?

 

[prozz]

Just some more pictures.

Hanging out.

Watching me watching him.

Nothing witty to insert here.

 

[Pea-brain]

Those are good pics. What kind of camera are you using? I have a 2" mantis and can hardly get non blurry pics of him with my cheapo digital camera. That and he's bright yellow so it messes with the white balance....

 

[justinl]

nice pics! I love your mantis. Im curious as well how you focused on the mantis and not the background. I have zero photography skill.

 

[prozz]

Rebel XT with a Canon 100m f/2 lens. I usually just set wb to which ever preset has the least “washed out” look on whatever I am photographing. Then I open the RAW in DxO Optics and set the wb to match the tank. DxO will let you set wb from 20k to 2k so it’s a fairly pain free process. A lot of other imaging software has similar features. That should get you closer to the color without having to spend much money.

I use manual focus and a tripod that weighs more then that tank. Something this small (and very mobile) is really a pain to focus to be honest. It just take patience and a lot of snapping images. It took just over 100 images to get 12 “so-so” images and 3 decent enough to post. The rest were just horrible.

The depth of field in these images is pretty bad imo so I have a lot more work to get the camera's settings for this subject dialed in. Once I can get that dialed in I should be able to get more detailed images.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Any time you are shooting something this small, depth of field and motion are your main enemies. To get even a half way decent dept of field, you want to be shooting at f22 or even f32 if the lens doesn't fall off significantly at higher f-stops. Using a tripod is a must, but locking the mirror up and/or a cable release will also help. Finally, the thing that I have found that helps the most is using a really short flash duration. I usually use twin strobes, but shooting at f32, the duration of the flash is pretty long. I get the flash heads as close to the subject as possible, go to manual, and try to get the exposure correct using 1/16th or 1/32 power. That gives you a duration of less than 1/10,000 and really reduces blur.

Roy