Happy New Year 2011

2010 was a great year for me and my photography. My blog Krishna Mohan Photography
has become more streamlined and I am able to write every week consistently this year. Even though the I wrote only 55 blogs this year as compared to 100 last year, the audience for my blog has grown a lot. Here is the brief statistics from my blogs log.

Monthly History 2010

There were 67167 unique visitors with 125502 visits. 488512 pages were served resulting from 2833281 hits. Total 67.23GB Bandwidth was used. This is almost twice that of year 2009. I am very grateful to all of you who have made this blog a great success All thanks goes to you who are my readers, friends and guides. It is you, who have encouraged me to blog and post almost a week. I have also been made an affiliate of B&H which is world renowned as the place to be for all your photo, video, pro audio and digital imaging needs.

On gear front has seen several drastic changes this year. I sold most of my old gear and refined my gear to suit what I shoot. I graduated from one Camera in hand to two with the purchase of Canon EOS 7D as my second camera. I also changed my gear very drastically to match with these two cameras I had. having two cameras is a boon in dusty environment where you can’t change lenses easily. Also it helps you to maintain 2 camera systems, one set for macro and other for tele all the time.

I now have a macro setup consisting of full frame Canon EOS 5D Mark II with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS II USM & Canon MP-E 65 f/2.8 1-5X Macro. For the Telephoto range I use cropped sensor Canon EOS 7D with either Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM or very sharp Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM usually fitted with 1.4x tele-converter giving me the extra reach for birds.

For land scape and general low light photography which I did not concentrate much this year I have wide angle Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM as well as very fast Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM. I also purchased a Gauragear Kiboko Camera bag which is the best bag in the world for carrying these heavy gear, period.

I got new support system in the form of Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 Carbon Fiber Tripod which is fitted with my trusted Acratech Ultimate Ball Head. I purchased new lightweight Benro C45T Carbon Fiber Monopod which I added Manfrotto 496 Compact Ball Head. These two give me a great support with high agility to move around.

Encouragement I received through your comments and mail is the one which kept me getting these photos and writing these blogs. Let us hope 2011 brings more such fun and joy for all of us. I thank all of you for the great support given to me till now.

Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2011.

Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis)

This male Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis) dragonfly was sitting in the garden basking the afternoon sun. Light was quite harsh on the dragonfly. The position it was sitting was also awkward so I had not much of chance of getting a good frontal pose. What I decided is to get a nice wing vein details from where I could take picture. I used my Canon EOS 5D mark II with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens and used existing sunlight to take this photograph. As the Sun was harsh you could notice the dark contrasty shot in the side photo. For the other two shots I used a semi transparent umbrella (shoot through umbrella) to cast shade on the dragonfly. This method was short lived as it startled the dragonfly and it flew off after few shots.

In Males eyes are dark reddish brown paler towards lateral and undersides. Thorax is dark chocolate brown above, which pales to golden olivaceous-brown on sides. Legs are black. Wings are transparent and tinted with deep golden amber at base. In the hind wings the amber tint encircles a black opaque area. Wing spot is blackish brown. Abdomen is bright red contrasting with blackish brown thorax.

Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis)

Early morning and late evening sun are the best to take photos as the light is softer and directional. Mid noon sun gives strong light and dark shadows which look horrible on photos. Either choose a cloudy or overcast day or shoot photos under shade.

Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis) is a medium sized dragonfly with brown black thorax and bright red abdomen. The face is covered with short and stiff black hairs. This is a common and relatively unattractive dragonfly species. It is not easy to get a nice shot as they are usually quite sensitive to human.

Male abdomen is bright blood-red; frons bright scaret-red, clypeus reddish brown; wings hyaline, with a pale uniform brown and a dark golden-amber spot at base of hind wing.

Brown-backed Red Marsh Hawk (Orthetrum chrysis)

Female thorax is pale brown, creamy yellow on dorsum; abdomen brownish yellow marked with a mid-dorsal brown stripe and an obscure stripe at both sides.

Female generally comes to water just for laying eggs, but male usually take the chance to mate. They are very wary insects and hardly to get closer except when they are in copulation.

Eudocima hypermnestra on a broomstick

This beautiful moth is a fruit-piercing moth (Noctuidae: Calpinae [sometimes included in subfamily Ophiderinae or Catocalinae]) in the genus Eudocima. There are several similar looking species in India, but I believe this one is probably Eudocima hypermnestra.

I found this moth on a broomstick near the window inside my house. It was quite camouflaged in olive green color and was acting like a leaf. But when it took to wings the bright yellow underwings showed as a contrast. This was probably to startle their predators by the sudden burst of color.

The moth was quite docile and allowed me to handle easily. So I was able to coax it to pose me on a white sheet of paper. After posing for me for a short while it must have got bored. It flew and sat on the window pane where I was able to get few more pictures of this lovely moth before flying away. I used my trusted rig of Canon EOS 5D mark II fitted with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM. For illumination I used ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter fitted on Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash.

Frontal View of Eudocima hypermnestra

The fruit piercing moths are very widespread, being found in Africa, India, South-east Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands. A wide range of fruits is attacked, particularly banana, citrus, guava, mango, papaya and tomato. The adult moth is active at night. It lands on the ripening fruit, pierces the skin with the tip of its proboscis and sucks out the juices. The tip of the proboscis is armed with saw teeth. A brown, circular, rotten area develops round the tiny puncture hole.

This moth is a known vector of Oospora citri, a fungus that rots the fruit and has a penetrating odor that attracts this moth. Other microorganisms that gain entrance into the fruit and cause rotting include Fusarium sp., Colletotrichum sp., and several types of bacteria.

When moths are abundant green fruit is attacked, causing premature ripening and dropping of fruits. On oranges, a green fruit turns yellow at the site of the piercing and fungi soon develop within the wound. On tomatoes, the puncture of the tomato skin causes the fruit to turn white and quickly rot. Incidence of damage by this moth is normally low, however when outbreaks occur, most of the crop is affected.

Eudocima hypermnestra

Sometimes the rotten fruit falls from the tree. To distinguish the damage caused by the fruit-piercing moth from that caused by fruit-flies, the fruit should be cut open; in fruit-fly damaged fruit, the grubs (larvae) can usually be seen and the fruit flesh has far more liquid than in fruit damaged by the fruit-piercing moth, which are soft and mushy.

The adult moths are about 3.5-5.0 cm long, with a wing span of8-10cm. The body is pale- to purple-brown with a dull yellow abdomen. The fore-wings are of an olive-brown to red-brown color often flecked with green and white. The under-wings are edged with a black border which has white dots along the edge, and have an inner orange area with a black comma-shaped mark inside it.
The female lays up to 300 eggs at a time.

Side View of Eudocima hypermnestra

Closely related to this Eudocima hypermnestra is another moth belonging to the same sub family Calpinae, which was in news for wrong reasons. It was named as Vampire moth as it was one of the rare species of moth which fed on blood. A widely distributed moth species, Calyptra thalictri, in central and southern Europe known to feed only on fruit. Siberian variety was fed on blood experimentally to prove that they do feed on animal products. You can read more on this National Geographic article on Vampire moths.

Eudocima hypermnestra Showing the Bright Undere-wing