Just flies

Lord Vetinari · August 21, 2007

Some recent fly shots

brian V.

Click on Pics for larger size

schmoo · August 21, 2007

As always, I'm so impressed!!

First of all, how do you manage to sneak up on these guys?
Second of all, how do you get them to stay put if you dangle a flower behind them to get the background?
Third, what's the red thingymadoodie on the back of that one?
Fourth... Nice mugshot on the fourth one down! A face only a mother could love.

Awais Yaqub · August 21, 2007

Wonderful photos !

RogersDA · August 21, 2007

Darn nice shootin', Brian. Colors, saturation, clarity are all great.

Skippy · August 21, 2007

schmooo wrote:

As always, I'm so impressed!!

First of all, how do you manage to sneak up on these guys?
Second of all, how do you get them to stay put if you dangle a flower behind them to get the background?
Third, what's the red thingymadoodie on the back of that one?
Fourth... Nice mugshot on the fourth one down! A face only a mother could love.

The man is a Bug Whisperer Schmooo

yup, I'm convinced

... Skippy
.

Skippy · August 21, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Some recent fly shots

brian V.

Click on Pics for larger size

Details, details, need details

Are these stacked ?
MPE-65 used, or other lens combination ?

Fly number #5 is that a parisite attached to him,
or just part of his body ?

They all look fantastic Brian

You amaze me how you can find so many bugs to shoot.

Another Excellent Series my friend

.... Skippy

.

DavidTO · August 21, 2007

Mebbe we should call you Lord of the Flies!

Nice work, as always.

D.Rodgers · August 21, 2007

Skippy wrote:

The man is a Bug Whisperer Schmooo yup, I'm convinced
... Skippy
.

Lol ,I think I agree with you Skippy

Sylar · August 21, 2007

Wow
Hey man, how i sayd you are the Macro master...
Amazing shot my friend!

donek · August 21, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Some recent fly shots

You always amaze me!

Lord Vetinari · August 22, 2007

Thanks for the kind comments everyone - I do appreciate them

Skippy all the shots were taken with an MPE-65 using flash and all were focus stacked from 2 to 5 shots except #1 (no focus stacking). Shot between 1.5:1 and 3:1 magnification.

Schmoo
"First of all, how do you manage to sneak up on these guys?
Second of all, how do you get them to stay put if you dangle a flower behind them to get the background?
Third, what's the red thingymadoodie on the back of that one?"

1. You just need to move in slowly on flies and see how they react. Sometimes they do fly away and sometimes they don't. The more occupied they are the easier they are to approach hence #1. The colder they are the less likely they are to fly- these were all shot in the morning, and the smaller the flies are the less likely it is they will take any notice of you.

2. Putting a flower behind them actually disturbs them more than putting a camera lens in front of them, but as I was doing flower refraction shots when most of these were shot, you might as well try

3. The red blob in #5 is not a school satchel but probably a parasitic mite. It's definitely a mite but often they are not parasitic- just hitching a lift somewhere else, but the posture of this (head down) and the bloated abdomen suggest it is a parasite.

Brian V.

ziggy53 · August 23, 2007

Brian,

I think that the Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2.8 is a full-frame lens?

If true, wouldn't you multiply the lens-designated magnification by the crop factor of the camera, assuming a crop camera was used?

Thanks,

Lord Vetinari · August 23, 2007

ziggy53 wrote:

Brian,

I think that the Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2.8 is a full-frame lens?

If true, wouldn't you multiply the lens-designated magnification by the crop factor of the camera, assuming a crop camera was used?

Thanks,

Hi Ziggy,
Yes the MPE-65 is a full frame lens but like any other macro lens the magnification ratio is expressed as size of image on the sensor compared to the original object so the sensor size is irrelevent. ie 1:1 magnification means 1cm of subject appears as 1cm of image on the sensor.
What is affected however is the print magnification. ie a 6*4 print from a full frame camera will appear less magnified than the same print taken with a 1.6 crop camera.
Brian V.

ziggy53 · August 23, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Hi Ziggy,
Yes the MPE-65 is a full frame lens but like any other macro lens the magnification ratio is expressed as size of image on the sensor compared to the original object so the sensor size is irrelevent. ie 1:1 magnification means 1cm of subject appears as 1cm of image on the sensor.
What is affected however is the print magnification. ie a 6*4 print from a full frame camera will appear less magnified than the same print taken with a 1.6 crop camera.
Brian V.

thumb An excellent explabation!

Wonderful series, BTW. You have really developed your craft into consistantly superb images.

Just flies

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