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Eastern Hercules beetle, Dynastes tityus. Sieren and I went out to the new Infantry Museum to see Star Trek in the IMAX theater (great show, by the way). On the way back to the van after the movie, we found quite a few large beetles and other insects attracted to the very bright lamps in the parking lot (it's right across the street from Oxbow Meadows so I imagine there are a bunch of critters there who just can't resist a place like this where they can party at night.

We took this fellow home, I stuck him on one of Beth's aloe plants and took a few quick shots with off-camera flash ... pretty good under the circumstances (try hand-holding a 300mm macro in one hand and a flash in the other ;-). Then Beth called me inside for a minute so I put him under an inverted Tupperware container with the intention of coming back to shoot more photos with the light on a stand and a fill reflector. There's nothing in the photo to really provide a sense of scale, but this guy was BIG, (he spanned three fingers, about 2 1/4") and very strong. In the few minutes I was inside, he head-butted the 6" Tupperware container until it slid over the edge of the table and made his escape. Gotta admire his spirit and determination, I didn't even try to look for him, just wished him luck.


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BH09_07_1721a.jpg - Eastern Hercules beetle, Dynastes tityus. Sieren and I went out to the new Infantry Museum to see Star Trek in the IMAX theater (great show, by the way). On the way back to the van after the movie, we found quite a few large beetles and other insects attracted to the very bright lamps in the parking lot (it's right across the street from Oxbow Meadows so I imagine there are a bunch of critters there who just can't resist a place like this where they can party at night. We took this fellow home, I stuck him on one of Beth's aloe plants and took a few quick shots with off-camera flash ... pretty good under the circumstances (try hand-holding a 300mm macro in one hand and a flash in the other ;-). Then Beth called me inside for a minute so I put him under an inverted Tupperware container with the intention of coming back to shoot more photos with the light on a stand and a fill reflector. There's nothing in the photo to really provide a sense of scale, but this guy was BIG, (he spanned three fingers, about 2 1/4") and very strong. In the few minutes I was inside, he head-butted the 6" Tupperware container until it slid over the edge of the table and made his escape. Gotta admire his spirit and determination, I didn't even try to look for him, just wished him luck.

Camera: NIKON D80 | Date: 7/15/09 10:04 PM | Resolution: 3680 x 2576 | ISO: 800 | Exp. Time: 1/60s | Aperture: 16.0 | Focal Length: 195.0mm (=297mm)

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