A Tiny Weevil at Fitzgibbon Bushland

I found this little weevil during a morning walk through Fitzgibbon Bushland in Brisbane. It wasn’t something I was looking for. Like a lot of my macro subjects, I simply noticed it sitting on a leaf and stopped for a closer look.

At first glance it was just a small brown beetle. Through the macro lens, though, there was much more going on. Its body was covered in a mix of brown, cream and white markings, and the surface of its wing cases had an incredible amount of texture. I could also see the tiny hairs on its legs, the detail in its compound eye and the unusual shape of its head and snout.

I decided to photograph it using focus bracketing. At this magnification, even at f/8, only a very thin part of the insect can be sharp in a single photograph. The camera therefore takes a series of images, moving the point of focus slightly with each one.

For this photograph I ended up with 76 frames. I combined them in Helicon Focus to produce a single image with much more of the weevil in focus. I then did some final adjustments in Lightroom.

The weevil wasn’t especially interested in being my model. I managed a couple of compositions, but I didn’t want to keep bothering it just to get more photographs or a better angle for identification. Sometimes what I come home with is enough.

I’m happy simply calling this one a weevil rather than trying to put a species name to it from the photographs I have.

What I particularly like about macro photography is that creatures like this are easy to walk straight past. To the naked eye it’s a tiny beetle sitting on a leaf. Once I get close, there’s suddenly an extraordinary amount of colour, pattern and structure.

And in this case, 76 photographs became one.

Photographic Details

OM System OM-1 Mark II · M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO · f/8 · Godox V860III-O flash · 76-frame focus stack · Helicon Focus · Lightroom.