Hi, I’m new around here. I’m very interested in documenting all the different arthropod species around my house, and I want to be able to take good close-up pictures so that I and other people can ID them better. I would also like to take pictures of ants, but I’m worried they’ll be too blurry.
Any tips?
I use my iPhone, often with a clip on lens for extra magnification.
I use video for fast things, then make screenshots of the better or more interesting frames.
I look in the early mornings and see a lot before they wake fully, especially bumble bees and dragonflies.
I learned I need not fear most pollinators, they’re too busy to bother with me.
And welcome to the forum!
On my camera (Canon PowerShot), there’s a ring of switches, with a flower on one side and a lightning bolt on the other. Push the flower until it says “Macro For shooting very close subjects”. I do this when there’s a spider suspended in midair; otherwise the camera will focus on whatever’s beyond the spider, and the spider will be a blur.
What size of ant? 2 mm? 15 mm?
For some insects, you want to get the underside. For example, sawfly schadons, most caterpillars, some noctuids, and geometrids have progressively fewer prolegs.
OT: Is the term “schadon” (or “skaddon” or even “shadden”) restricted to Apocrita? If so, what’s a sawfly larva called? It looks like a caterpillar, but it’s not a caterpillar because it’s not a lep. Caterskaddon?
Hi Paintdragon and welcome to the forum 
, you have set yourself a fascinating and far from easy challenge. Photographing arthropods is what I love to do most in the world (I realise that is actually totally true, which (anywhere but here in iNaturalist) could make me seem very odd indeed 
). Thunderhead and phma have given you some excellent advice on equipment, technique and what to look for. I’ll just add that knowing your arthropod is also a great help. An example: if you want to photograph ants (notoriously difficult alas), it helps to pick a time of day when they’re not super active, often in the morning when even indoors, it’s usually cooler, then you should study their behaviour (is there a favourite path they often follow? is there a particular point along that path where they often pause?). I might even cheat just a little and offer them a particle of food so they’re likely to stop and investigate. It takes a lot of patience, but it can be really rewarding, and not just photographically. Happy home observing 
.
I make my observations with my phone. It’s not the top of the line, but it’s a pretty good one, with 3x zoom on video and 5x zoom on photo.
For slow-moving insects (like beetles) I just take photos. For butterflies and bees I take videos, then go through them very slowly and take screenshots of the best frames. For bees, I aim for having photos from multiple angles, including the abdomen and the face from the side and front. I’ve learned that tiny little details in the face can be crucial, and I often don’t achieve the right level of detail, try as I may.
Here’s a typical example of one of my observations of Common Eastern
Bumblebee: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/301573235
This species is easy to ID, and just the first photo alone would have been enough.
But here’s a mining bee observation with similar quality photos, that weren’t good enough for a species-level ID by experts - who really do pore over every detail of your photos sometimes:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/303777773
I would recommend spending some time just looking at other people’s observations, using the “Explore” tab, where you can filter by order, family, genus, or whatever you like. See what kind of photos people are posting and whether or not they are getting IDed.
Welcome! good luck! have fun!
p.s.: If you get good photos of the faces, just for fun you can add them to this project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/arthropod-faces as long as you fill out the observation field “facial features clearly visible”
A general tip for when you want to get a reliable ID for an insect or any other (small) organism is to take pictures from different angles. There could be characteristic details on the head, thorax, abdomen, wings, legs, underside or really anywhere on an insect’s body, and it’s never possible to get all those spots in a single photo.
Since my specialty is moths, here’s an extra tip for photographing those. If you have a specimen that doesn’t keep all of its four wings on the same plane, for example by folding them like a roof, always try to get a clear shot of at least one complete side. That means: have your camera or phone perpendicular to the wing surface, so all of its sides are at an equal distance to your camera and the entire wing is clear and no parts are blurry. In other words, if a moth folds it wings like a roof over its abdomen, don’t take (only) a picture from above, but rather from the side, so that either the right side or the left side of the moth is completely visible. This will make it easier to see the pattern on the wing and give a reliable ID.
Some examples of moths that keep all of their wings on the same plane and can be photographed from above:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/300767526
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293758719
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293503508
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293226494
Some examples of moths that fold their wings like a roof and should be photographed from the side:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/301264191
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/301264168
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293865234
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293865154
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293503522
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293339308
Hi and welcome! I would suggest using a macro setting if that is possible, though sometimes it can make your photos grainy. I have noticed that if you march straight up to the insect to get a photo, it is immediately skirting away. Instead, I suggest slowly but surely moving closer, taking photos as you go, getting better and more identifiable shots, until you are very close. It doesn’t always work, of course, but if you have enough time and patience, you’ll probably have more luck with this strategy. I hope it works for you!
I’ve learned a few tricks over many summers: (1) for fast flyers like butterflies or hover flies, I set my DSLR on “sport” or “burst” mode. I usually get 1-2 sharp photos out of every 10 or 20, (2) I figured out that if I use a zoom lens (50-300 mm) I can shoot from farther away and the insect isn’t scared off as easily, (3) I’ve started using a small net for butterflies, moths, and a few other more cooperative critters. Then I can either hold them (very gently) and take a photo with the other hand, or put them in a flat plexiglass container and put them in the refrigerator for a few hours. That makes them a little sluggish so you can put them on a piece of dark paper and get a good shot.
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