261: Ripening Tomatoes

The traffic lights are all on at once here, but they're very slow to change. And they get eaten; those two red examples were picked later in the day.

Settings: f/3 (approx,) 1/200, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42. Some curves and colour adjustment, slight sharpen and crop.

247: White-Marked Tussock

I found this little one while pruning a fruit bush, never seen one like it before. It didn't move a millimetre while I set up the shot.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Pentacon M42, 26mm extension, 1/4 flash, white paper, tripod.

232: Nettle Caterpillars

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, black velvet, tripod.

210: Green Furry Caterpillars

I found yet more caterpillars on my black kale today. (Small White?)
After picking off all that I could find, I figured making whatever use I could of them would be good; I tried leaving some out for the birds a few days before, but they didn't get eaten. So a photo now, and into the compost bin afterwards... Sorry folks, that's life. It's them or my vegetables.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 49mm extension, 1/4 flash, glass, red paper, white cards, copy stand.

096: Bumblebee

I made friends with this tired bumblebee today. I placed it on a small concrete block and fed it some honey. I don't think it liked the flash burst, so I gave up after a couple of shots. This is the better one.
I'm quite impressed at how much detail I managed to capture in this photo; you can clearly make out the texture of the bee's eye and antennae.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 77mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector. Some RAW tweaking (luminance curve, noise reduction ,sharpening, cropping.)

078: Long Potato Sprout

This is when you leave a potato in an eggbox on the windowsill, and a sprout from underneath the potato decides it's too dark where it is and starts to make its way upwards.

Settings: f/16, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm M42, 33mm extension, full flash, white top reflector.