Macro Photography – Soldier beetle

This is a Soldier Beetle which I found in the field across the road from our house in May 2012. I believe the Latin name for this variety is Cantharis Rustica.

This was taken with a Pentax K-r and a Tamron 90 mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens. In order to hand hold the camera and get enough depth of field to keep the beetle in focus I had to raise the ISO to 2200 to get the shot at 1/125 @ f/8.0. A little bit of noise reduction was applied in Lightroom and I also cropped the images to get a 2x magnification from the original picture.

• Pentax K-r
• Tamron 90mm f/2.8
• iso 2200
• 1/125
• f/8.0