This week I am going to share a few more images from nocturnal macro missions to Okareka. Last week I focussed on Nurseryweb Spiders and a previous post served as an introduction to night macro at Okareka.

These photos were made on a visit with Edin so we had the opportunity to try some alternative lighting with flash and LED torch to provide some backlightling on the leaves.

The obvious subjects are in the lakeside vegetation but as we were leaving we explored a large rotting stump finding a number of shortlegged Harvestmen which glow under UV light but are very well camouflaged in white light. This next image is a 2 image stack assembled with Helicon Focus. Single frames only show half of the body in focus but the stacked image reveals the full body in focus. Depending on your perspective this is intriguing or horrifying!

Heading up the path back to the parking area we found a co-operative female Earwig in a dry leaf. The males have more curved pincers than the female. Earwigs are intriguing in that their wings are double folded in origami fashion under the short wing case.

By now we were running rather later than planned. Just before the parking area, Edin noticed an emerging cicada. This delayed us even further but was another great opportunity to experiment with mixed flash and LED lighting to highlight the nymph shuck and adult wings.

Photos with Nikon D850, Tamron 90mm macro lens, Nikon SB900 flash and homemade foam diffuser.