Infestation

Infestation

First of all, if you were just scanning blip while waiting for supper to be served, then please accept my apologies.

I was just about to start a laundry session when I spotted these little beauties on the ceiling. Well, perhaps not so little and aesthetically falling slightly shy of gorgeous. There were three of them, but by the time I had retrieved my camera, one had retired to the drain were they live. Roaches don?t freak me out like they do a lot of people, but I wouldn?t assign names and keep one as a pet.

I took a dozen shots standing on the floor, using different settings, to get something in the can, just incase they got camera shy. A sharp image is crucial to a shot like this, blurry leg hairs just was not going to be acceptable. The best of the shots was flash with a wide aperture. This was far from ideal because of the harsh shadows but was my best chance of a crisp shot. The use of a tripod was out of the question, I was going to be standing on a plastic stool in the next session, craning to get as close as possible.

I mounted my trusty stool, again I bracketed settings, to get the best I could. After processing, I was happy with some of the results, but decided to have one more go and attempt a non-flash capture. The room lighting was an over sized power saver type bulb, way over powered for the size of the tiny room, so hand held was possible. I was working with 1/30 sec and wide aperture. I took another dozen shots, using the wall as a steady. A couple of the shots were crisp, but no matter how I processed them, I just could not get the wing ridge detail that I had on the flash shots and the results were rather bland. The room light threw a lot of shadow, but it did look better from the oblique angle, but the wing detail won the day and so I published the flash shot.

Originally, I thought the cockroaches lived in the drain, but as I was finishing up with the non-flash shots, the upper subject squeezed through the hole shown in the blip and disappeared. The infestation is easily dealt with once the nest is located. A short burst of fly spray and the job is done. I was actually contemplating leaving them for a few weeks, thinking that a blip with a couple of dozen hairy legged critters might be a bit more impressive. Nah! You?ll be glad to read that I came to my senses. I?ll blast them tomorrow.

On the wall to my left, as I was shooting, was a very well fed gecko or chik-chak as they are known here because of the sound that they make. I was not aware that they tackled such large insects, but judging from the size of the distended belly of this lizard, I would say that they do. Chik-chaks are difficult to photograph as they are very shy and very quick, but I?ll get one sooner or later for a blip. If you are not comfortable sharing your abode with various house guests, then perhaps Indonesia is not the place for you.

Dave