Macro at night, help.

[Xerse]

Hey everyone, I've been out and about all night tonight with all my macro gear looking for little creepy crawlies to shoot.

I found about a billion spiders, one moth (which flew off after one shot which was pants) and about twenty trillion snails/slugs.

My question to you all is, where are all the moths? Ants? anything but spiders and snails!

Are they all hiding away at this time of year? last august in the same spot there was so many different insects around, even frogs/toads. You name it, it was there.

Are there any tricks any of you macro guys have for luring things out? (like sugar water spray for flies) I've just wasted 8 hours looking at every tiny leaf, tree branch and flower and got nothing in return!

Please help!

 

[LCPete]

Hi I haven't tried macro at night but I do like to go first thing in the morning
What I do is go and have a look around during the day to see where the insects are and go back in the morning
Ponds and river banks would be a good place to try

 

[Andy Johnson]

Hi, wooden fence panels can be quite good at night for earwigs, wood lice and spiders. You can find roosting flies on tall seeding grass heads, and if you know of a maize field nearby, all sorts of small flying bugs will use the leaves for roosting. They also seem to attract lacewings. You could invest in a moth catcher, one of my members on a forum i own made one, although a bit much for me to make it apparently works very well http://www.ukmantisforums.co.uk/showthread.php?1919-Moth-catcher&highlight=moth+trap The problems this time of year is that there's getting less to find . Good luck

 

[Xerse]

Hi I haven't tried macro at night but I do like to go first thing in the morning
What I do is go and have a look around during the day to see where the insects are and go back in the morning
Ponds and river banks would be a good place to try

I have been to this specific place quite a few times, sometimes from sunset to sunrise, I just don't know if maybe the time of the year is having an impact on bugs so soon.

The place I go is about 5 minutes walk from my house, a little wooded area (small) on farmland, with a small river running through it. Normally get no end of insect life around there.

Hi, wooden fence panels can be quite good at night for earwigs, wood lice and spiders. You can find roosting flies on tall seeding grass heads, and if you know of a maize field nearby, all sorts of small flying bugs will use the leaves for roosting. They also seem to attract lacewings. You could invest in a moth catcher, one of my members on a forum i own made one, although a bit much for me to make it apparently works very well http://www.ukmantisforums.co.uk/showthread.php?1919-Moth-catcher&highlight=moth+trap The problems this time of year is that there's getting less to find . Good luck

Thanks for your reply, normally fence panels come up with quite a lot of insect life for me too, i guess i might of just been unlucky tonight...lastnight...what day is it?..

I wasn't aware that flies liked to roost on grass heads, that's great information!
There's fields all around me, but honestly I've never gone off into the farmers fields with the camera, never even glanced, i just pop straight into the wooded area, and around it. I'll definitely be looking around the fields from now on.

I really like the moth catcher idea. That looks real simple and cheap to make too, i have all the items minus the bulb!

Thank you very much for all your help, Andy!

 

[TimmyG]

Moths will be air born at night; you need to tempt them down with some lights. Most ants are diurnal so they'll be tucked up in their nests at night. Other ground bugs might bury beneath the soil to maintain warmth.

Of course there are still plenty of bugs around at night, but they'll be much more difficult to see (I usually rely on movement to spot them during the day) and, as Jon Snow would say, "Winter is Coming"