Praying Mantis Portrait

Posted on July 27, 2021

I was looking for interesting bugs in our gardens to photograph and I found this Praying Mantis in the shade under some of the flowers. It was very dark but that made the Mantis stand out more. I was using a 300mm lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter @ f/11 with a Canon R. I wanted to make sure I got detail on the head and antennae only so I did a handheld 13 image focus stack to make sure I had detail on it’s head & 2 antennae or feelers. I purposely only wanted detail on the head and antennae and let the body go soft.

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Praying Mantis Garden Close-ups

Posted on September 25, 2019

We seem to have had a lot of Praying Mantises in our Gardens this year. We also saw quite a few in local parks. This series shows some closeups shot with a 150mm Macro. Some I concentrated more on the head, others just overall shots. When you get really close it is interesting to see their eyes and you feel they are really looking at you as you photograph them. To keep softer non-distracting backgrounds I shot @ f/8 or f/11 and smoothed backgrounds as I was working on the files. I liked the Featured image best because it seemed to say “Who you looking at!”