My first post about my history of photographing insects left off with my need to enlarge my subjects in my photos. I did some research and saw how others on the web were taking their macro photos. This only got me discouraged, because I saw how much their lenses cost. I didn’t have $300 to $1200 to spend on a new lens. One day, I stopped at a photo shop in my area (Marks Photo and Video) and spoke with a girl behind the counter. I told her where I was in my photography and she mentioned macro filters. Her suggestion was to try them as my next step in learning macro. $20 is all it cost me to get to the next step in my photography. My first set contained 3 filters: +1, +2 & +4. I went home and began to experiment with them. I was worried about using “too much glass” at first, but found that using all three filters together really helped me get the enlargement of my subjects that I wanted. There were many times that I had to juggle filter combinations when an insect was too large to use all three. So, this is how I played with my camera from about 2010 through 2012. Next time I may write about my woes of the 50mm lens.
Gallery Update
As of today, the ICBugs Gallery is completed. That is, I have sorted, chosen, cropped and slightly edited through 25,450 insects photos that I have taken. The result is that I have posted 5,089 photos in the Gallery. Not all the photos are the quality that I strive for in my photography. The reason that lower quality photos are present is that it may be the only shot I have for a particular species (or the best that I was able to take at the time. Also, I started with a camera that was 10.1 MP, which makes the tiny insects look fuzzy when cropped. As I have stated before, I do hope that if any insect is incorrectly identified, you will let me know the correct ID. I will research the photo further for accuracy. I am open to any suggestions and comments about this site. I do hope that it is easy to navigate for all who visit. It really has been good for me that it still has been cold here in Michigan. It has slowed me from adding to my collection of photos that I still have not found an ID for, over 4,000 at this time. I have debated with myself whether I might add another folder on the Gallery. One that would contain my insects that need to be identified. As a clarification: my first statement was “the ICBugs Gallery is completed.” That only means the first stage. I do hope to add more folders as my wife and I are able to travel to other areas where I have not yet taken pictures. I hope you enjoy the photos and that the site will be useful. I thank God for His Creativity and thank Him whenever I am able to get out into His Creation to discover what He made.