I was out shooting some Asian Lady Bugs the other day and almost got one on take-off. As you can see, I got the pre-flight check shot ok, but the take-off was OOF. f 8.0 and 1/800 with 1600 ISO. I was handheld, so I'm sure I had some issues b/c of that. Do you think 1/800 might be a little slow? I'm sure those factors plus a short DOF didn't help! Searched a little on FM Macro threads and couldn't find anything about trying to catch a beetle taking off. Does anyone have experience and/or advice they could please share?

I think to get that kind of scene sharp you're either going to have to be in front of the critter (so it's coming right at you and it will be easier to freeze the motion) or you'll have to use a flash.

Think you are halfway there. Two problems are motion freezing and probably more importantly getting the focus correct. Flash or high shutter speeds would help with motion freezing - I don't know if predictive AI/AF would help with the focus or whether you can do it at all with macro - never tried it.
Brian V.

One other thing: Seems to me that you're putting a lot of time and work into getting a sharp, centered photo. It would be much better if there was less dead space behind the subject, maybe with the beetle in the lower left hand corner looking into the right side of the frame (for example). IMHO there's just no point in putting a lot of time and effort into taking a poorly composed razor sharp image...

I never tried shooting beetle but I've tried birds and even 1/1250s wasn't enough to completely freeze the wing. I'd imagine that beetle is faster. You'll probably need a strobe or something.

A flash would do the trick wouldnt it?
even the shutter speed itself not being so high itself, the flash in second courtain should freeze a frame with motion blur behind I think

Actually, that might work even better to convey a sense of speed rather than freezing it totally.

Dalantech wrote:
One other thing: Seems to me that you're putting a lot of time and work into getting a sharp, centered photo. It would be much better if there was less dead space behind the subject, maybe with the beetle in the lower left hand corner looking into the right side of the frame (for example). IMHO there's just no point in putting a lot of time and effort into taking a poorly composed razor sharp image...

Agreed...I was actually practicing my focus more than anything (trying to follow these guys around as they crawled) and wasn't putting enough thought into composition. The take-off surprised me and, afterwards, I realized I should have allowed for more open space in the frame. Thanks for your comments!

When I first got into macro I put all of my effort into nailing the focus and ended up with a lot of images that would have been good had I nailed the composition as well...