Congo Blue Flash L1, L2, Molt

Got these little guys from Yen.

For size reference, here is an L2 on my finger:



This is what the L1s look like:

Molt to L2:



















***Slinkytreekreeper, this one was shot with a crappy diopter. You can see distortion toward the edges.***

Shots of an L2 a few days after molt:

***Slinkytreekreeper, these were all shot using the good Opteka diopter and Canon 250D.***

Wow! Fantastic shots! Best of luck with them!

Lovely images, stunning nymphs. Really digging the purple eyes and green shades of the body. They have a real similar shape to some mio's I just got that jump so fast they seem to teleport. :lol:

The new diopter does really well, but now you can get a tube and then stick that on the end as well! You know you want to B)

If I hadn't just bankrupted myself by finally caving in and buying an mpe and that damn sexy flash you have I would post you a tube to try, I'd be REALLY interested how the opteka performed in sharpness with a bare 100mm on a set of tubes. I know the raynox clip on diopter does some fantastic chromatic aberration corrections on some average telephoto lenses. I'd be up for sticking one on the mpe too.

All but the last two opteka shots look great but a little darker than the 250D ones, does it let less light through with TTL metering?

And while i'm waiting for mine, how are you diffusing the 24ex please?

pretty pretty

Slinkytreekreeper said:

I know the raynox clip on diopter does some fantastic chromatic aberration corrections on some average telephoto lenses. I'd be up for sticking one on the mpe too.

All but the last two opteka shots look great but a little darker than the 250D ones, does it let less light through with TTL metering?

And while i'm waiting for mine, how are you diffusing the 24ex please?

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I had a Raynox diopter for the camcorder and I returned it. It added vignettes unless it was zoomed at least halfway in. Very annoying. I hated it. It was the most expensive one I tried too. I hope they make better quality add-ons for DSLRs. It was really tough finding anything of quality with 37mm threads. Thank God the new one uses 58mm threads.

Yeah, the light is going through the 250D, the Opteka and then the EF100. Overall the images were darker because of that. I had to adjust exposure in Photoshop. If I were using all 3 regularly, which I don't plan on doing, I'd figure out the proper exposure offset on the flash to make up for it. The uncorrectable dark shots where just me trying to deal with a really bad angle. These little guys race all over so I was struggling to get shots and they weren't always ideally lit. Should probably have left those shots out.

I've been using those two Gary Fong Puffer Diffusers I was telling you about. I modified the clips so I can use a rubber band to secure them. At first I had them directly on the surface of each flash, but I'm happier with them around an inch above the surface. Makes it a bit clunky when aimed sharply toward the lens, but otherwise works very well.

So you ordered the MT24-EX? Nice! You will be amazed how much easier it makes macro. So glad I took the leap. I'm really looking forward to shooting out in nature.

lol.. these guys are "Congos" now too? I like their coloring as nymphs.. you wanna know what color my adults are? BROWN! Like a Brown Crayola Crayon! =Þ::::

kitkat39 said:

lol.. these guys are "Congos" now too? I like their coloring as nymphs.. you wanna know what color my adults are? BROWN! Like a Brown Crayola Crayon! =Þ::::

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I don't know. Are they??? I thought I saw them called that. Give me the scoop. I don't want to mislead anyone.

Nah I'm not even sure to be honest... This whole time I just thought that only the Alalomantis were the ones who were called the "Congos" because there was some debate about that even though there are plenty of mantis that come from the Congo area. I'm not sure about it myself.

I was just ranting about how much more I like the colors on your nymphs compared to my adults. =)

This is Sphodromantis sp. I could be wrong but i was told the species is originally from Congo too.

UH OH...Not again???