Moth

Posted by David Brady on November 19, 2007 at 7:00 am · Filed under Flying, Insects, Moths, Picture of the Day, SFA

Moth
Click for larger version

Reader Tim Pollard recently sent in a batch of amazing photos. This stunning moth picture comes to us from his home in Banora Point, NSW, Australia.

At first glance it looks like the most amazing stop-motion photography capturing a freak moth attack. And hey, it’s Australia; this isn’t out of the question for some of their bugs. A closer look, however, reveals Tim’s secret: you can just make out glints of light reflecting off the window that this moth stopped on to pose for Tim’s camera.

This picture was taken last year; Tim’s memory is that the moth’s body was perhaps 3-5cm long

Tim says he shoots with a Kodak Z700 digital camera. We can clearly see here that he’s also got a great eye. He’s sent in a couple more shots, and more importantly, it’s Springtime now in Australia so I am hoping Tim will send along some more photos to get us Northerners through the Winter. :-)

What an amazing shot. Thanks, Tim!

4 Comments »

  1. tceisele said,

    November 19, 2007 @ 10:32 am

    Ah, yes, the window trick. I highly recommend it, like for the male carpenter ant on this page, or the Eupithecia moth here. If it’s a double-pane window, you can press the camera right up to the inner pane,and be at a good distance for photographing the insect on the outer pane. Although, I made a mistake both times: it works best if you are brightly lighting the insect with diffuse light from the same side of the window that you are on, otherwise you end up looking at them mainly in transmitted light. It also works best if you are using manual focus, otherwise the autofocus tends to try to focus on what is through the window, not what is on it.

  2. David Brady said,

    November 19, 2007 @ 10:43 am

    Awesome ant pics, tceisele!

  3. tceisele said,

    November 19, 2007 @ 11:31 am

    Thanks! A bit after I posted those carpenter ant pictures, we found out that they had started a new nest under the refrigerator. They hadn’t actually tunnelled into anything, they were just hanging out under there in a pile, raising their brood. My wife vacuumed them all up before I got a chance to take photographs, and that was the end of that.

  4. Insect Picture of the Day » Gigantorax, Atomic Mutant Fly said,

    November 20, 2007 @ 10:30 am

    [...] with Tim’s previous picture, this one comes to us from Banora Point, NSW, Australia. Thanks again, [...]

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