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Moth Fly Revisited
e6filmuser
Registered Users Posts: 3,378 Major grins
I tried to get flies in a more photographable situation than was the case with my previous attempt. On fly, to my surprise settled on the rim of the compost bin, and stayed there for many minutes. This overcame the rocking and rotating of the upturned lid in the previous shoot. The ideal viewpoints remained just out of reach, due to large and heavy obstructions i.e. adjacent compost bins, but access was much improved.
This time I kept the aperture constant.
EM-1. 200mm extension, Schneider Repro-Claron 55mm (not reversed) f16, RC single flash with kit diffuser and foil snood. Camera hand-held with some support from cane. ISO 800, Aperture priority. FOV 5mm wide. WD ca 60mm.
Each frame cropped by ca 50%.
I believe that the results can be improved on but the difficulty of framing these insects at all means that I will not return to them in the near future but will seek other subjects. I am content that the lens does much what I expected of it. I have yet to determine how to get the best out of it e.g. magnification and aperture.
Harold
This time I kept the aperture constant.
EM-1. 200mm extension, Schneider Repro-Claron 55mm (not reversed) f16, RC single flash with kit diffuser and foil snood. Camera hand-held with some support from cane. ISO 800, Aperture priority. FOV 5mm wide. WD ca 60mm.
Each frame cropped by ca 50%.
I believe that the results can be improved on but the difficulty of framing these insects at all means that I will not return to them in the near future but will seek other subjects. I am content that the lens does much what I expected of it. I have yet to determine how to get the best out of it e.g. magnification and aperture.
Harold
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Brian v.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/
http://www.lordv.smugmug.com/
I have teased some more detail out of the second image.
Essentially, I need to get a view where the near wing, through to the eyes, is parallel to the plane of the sensor, something which I tried for but physical constraints prevented. With that, f11 or even f8 might do the job.
I suspect that my lack of practice at this magnification, together with unfamiliarity with a new lens, are major factors. These will be addressed during the coming weeks.
Harold
I've done some static, bench tests on inanimate objects. My conclusions are that, at this magnification, f11 may just be the optimum aperture although I cannot really see any clear difference at f16. There is some deterioration at f22 and f32 is dreadful. Also, the tiny DOF at f8 makes this aperture useless other than for copying and suchlike, and, presumably, for stacking.
Harold
I took some further (flash) shots today, this time of the fine petal details of an orchid. As the subject was rather three-dimensional and focus planes difficult to replicate, I took three shots of the same area at each of the apertures f11, f16 and f22. I chose the best image of each for comparison.
The results were similar to the previous ones but with, perhaps, a tiny bit more resolution at f11 than at f16. Although, at this magnification, I would chose f11 as default, I would be happy to go half a stop smaller, a full stop if DOF was a priority.
Harold