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I confess that mantises are among the insects that I like photographing the most, this is because they are relatively calm insects, they don't tend to run away and have an attractive appearance for photos due to the number of shapes, colors and parts they have on their body...

_{100mm | 1/400s | f/8 | ISO 400}
^{(Specifically this is my PhotoFeed contest entry photo)}

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_{100mm | 1/320s | f/9 | ISO 500}

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This one I share today seems to be a juvenile female specimen belong the Stagmatoptera genus, under which most of the large green mantises in our country are classified. In fact, it looks to me like it belongs to the species Stagmatoptera femoralis, but this juvenile individual did not yet have its wings formed, so that makes it more complicated to determine the ID more precisely.

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_{100mm | 1/200s | f/9 | ISO 500}

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_{100mm | 1/200s | f/9 | ISO 500}

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This mantis was on a cherry tree branch in my backyard. I saw it by pure chance during the afternoon today when I was looking for my cats to feed them. I immediately ran to my room and got my camera, but not before attaching my 100mm macro lens. As I said before, mantises are very quiet insects, so when I returned with my camera, it was in the same place where I first saw it.

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_{100mm | 1/400s | f/7.1 | ISO 500}

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My lens, a Tokina ATX-PRO 100mm f/2.8 d MACRO, has a minimum working distance of 30 centimeters, which I always try to take full advantage of to get as much detail as possible in macro shots. This time, the mantis noticed my presence (they have excellent vision and hunt using this to capture their prey) and immediately started to look straight at the lens (I love when they do that) and even dared to place its scythes in attack position towards my lens... They are so beautiful!... It's a pity that females have the bad habit of eating their husbands!... :))

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_{100mm | 1/250s | f/6.3 | ISO 500}

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For this "photo shoot" I used semi-automatic aperture mode (P) and made constant adjustments to the aperture, keeping between f/9 and f/6.3 as required by the shooting distance and the light provided by the angle of capture (I rotated around the insect while shooting the photos). All the time I used my camera handheld, the location and height of the insect's placement was unsuitable for a monopod, let alone a tripod. The light was at all times natural, as it was around 3 PM and we had enough light even though the insect was protected by part of the tree foliage.

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_{100mm | 1/200s | f/9 | ISO 500}

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This lens is not stabilized, so (as is often the case when I take macro shots) I was doing strange things like leaning back from the cherry tree stem and/or holding my breath while trying to focus. By the way, speaking about focusing, I had to use manual focus on almost all the photos due to the inefficiency of the autofocus which "disengaged" too often. I guess this has to do with the low contrast and the limited light duet the foliage. Also. This mantis is green as is much of what surrounds she! ;)

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_{100mm | 1/400s | f/9 | ISO 500}

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And of course, "here are the black and white versions of these photos for you"... Being a mantis, with all those diverse, fascinating and expressive shapes, I had to share my beloved black and white versions with you... Besides, this girl looks like an E.T. when we see her in black and white... Don't you think?

_{("Click" on the B&W shots to enlarge please)}

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Thank you very much for your visit and appreciation!

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_{ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL NOTE: Photographs captured with my Nikon D7000 DSLR camera in RAW format, then processed in Adobe Camera RAW for adjustments regarding light, sharpening, contrast and depth... The pictures are then exported to JPG format on which minor modifications such as straightening and adding watermarks were carried out using PhotoScape 3.6.3. and/or Photoshop}

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Montalbán, Carabobo, Venezuela.