new mantis shrimp!!!

surfn

I bleed orange and maroon
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whew! i got TONS lucky yestereday!! :D

just got this guy yesterday from our LFS.
owner was dipping a mushroom rock that came in on a new shipment, and said "something black darted" off of the rock. just my luck i walked in the door right after this happened.
its a 1", and i'm like 95% sure its gota be a Smithii! which is awesome, b/c i've been waiting to find a cool mantis for 2 years. this one is quite well manered, and not that shy.
other mantis shrimps i've had in the past were very shy, and very mean.
its mostly green, with some darker stripes across the back. there are also some white spots across the back. the "tail feathers" (uropods?) are a mix of blue/pink/yellow. and although he never gave me a good shot of the merel spot, it looks to be purple with either a white ring or light blue ring.
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Mr.Firemouth

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mantis.jpg


I sharpened the pic up a bit. He is beautiful!!!! Very colorful!

Try adjusting the white balance on the camera before taking the pics. Also take with and without flash. Should help with color balance on pics.
 
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surfn

surfn

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yeah, i take these pictures in RAW, then brightened them up in photoshop. the original picture was much darker. plus this is a kit lense, so i figure i'm at the limit of the lense since this guy was pretty small, and i had to crop and enlarge the picture.

what tools did you use to get your post image? thats really good whatever you did.
 

Mr.Firemouth

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Surf, go in these steps...

1. auto adjust levels
2. shadow/highlight...experiment here with the various levels
3. color balance...if the pick isn't realistic to the subject then adjust the color experimenting again. Use all three levels midtones/shadow/highlights
4. Then use unmask sharp. Experiment here also.
5. If that doesn't look right then use sharpen edges.

Shooting in RAW takes some know how processing afterward. I just shoot in MACRO function and PS afterward. Stix posted some armegeddons that I could easily show you the difference of a good pic photoshopped. I don't change anything...just clean the blah out of the pic. If Stix says it's ok I will post the difference.
 

Kigs!

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funniest thing when i had a large ~7'' peacock mantis. after feeding him small turbo snails for months, he got bored of eating them and started to refuse them...and one day my LFS got those jumbo mexican turbos in, and sure enough the mantis was interested. well, after few attempts, he ended up breaking the joints between one of his smashers. well, ok guess it's not that funny because he soon came down with shell disease. don't feed him jumbo mexican turbos Al. those things are hazardous to mantis shrimps... =\
 
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yeah thats pretty good. i was in a rush when i was taking the pics. plus, the mantis is inside a plastic container behind the tank wall. so that adds a bit to the distortions.


i already had a mantis tank set up for several years with a small lime green mantis, no bigger than 1inch. i havent seen the mantis since september, so this guy is probably gonna go in there and make it its new home. just need to do some tidying up.
 

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