Thanks all, I'm still trying to get the hang of my 105mm nikkor. It seems I will have to put my big boy pants on and start shooting manually. The roaches are dubias and the boys will eat them at adult size, they just chew them up more before they go down the hatch. The, space between the eyes, rule doesn't seem to apply to them lol. As for the good shots I haven't had many and most of them are not of the chams lol.
The camera is a D700 and frankly too much camera for me but I got a deal on it and thought I might get more serious about my photography but it hasn't happened yet lol.