a fairly common parasitoid of noctuid Lepidoptera pupae.
This insect was found in my conservatory where I think it had been trapped for about a week or so. I took some shots of its back, side and front and posted them on the Facebook Hymenoptera where they were identified by Gavin Broad, senior curator of Hymenoptera at the Natural History Museum in London.
This photo was made from 60 images shot RAW with Canon T3i, 100mm f/2.8 macro with Raynox DCR-250 at f/5.6, 2.0 sec, ISO-100. Lit with 2 Ikea LED lamps diffused through a plastic tube covered with tissue. Camera moved by turning the micrometer on a linear slide 0.1mm between shots. Images tweaked to improve contrast, sharpened and converted to TIFF with Canon Digital Photo Pro, processed with Zerene Stacker using PMax, then output image cropped, levels adjusted, cleaned up and converted to reasonably-sized JPEG using PS Elements. I tried my best to get the contrast right, but the image still looks a bit washed out. I think that this may be partly due to the shiny surface of the wasp's face.
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