The Harlequin – André Norris

My wife and I were on vacation in June 2010.  We used Clarens in the Eastern Freestate as our base to explore the area. 
 
One afternoon after some retail therapy (my wife loves this) or after an outing to one of the to-do’s we returned to our guesthouse for a little afternoon nap.  Upon our return I spotted the little lady bugs outside our room in the garden.  I grabbed the tripod, fixed the flash (it was a little overcast) and started shooting.  Not sure how many shots I took, but there was many!  I spent about two hours shooting (these little bugs don’t sit very still) and because of this had a stiff back the next day.

In the end I kept about 10 pics that were sharp enough and this ended up as the final product.  I did do some cropping, but otherwise there was very little post processing, a little sharpening, noise reduction and removing one or two dust spots.
 
When back at home from holiday I did some investigation into the lady bug and found that it was called the Harlequin lady bug, from there the name for the photo.  The beetle has been described as an "invasive monster beetle that gobbles up practically everything in its way". 
 
Technical information:
 
·         Canon EOS 550D
·         Canon 100mm L Macro IS USM lens
·         Canon 580EX II Speedlite
·         f/9.0
·         ISO 100
·         Club: July 2010, COM, 2* winner, Junior winner, Best of event
 
Cheers

André