Want critique Blue Bottle Fly

[Rick]

Would be very interesting to travel to Australia by spring, and to see how you celebrate Christmas there wrought snow and Santa claus?
Finland and Australia, two quite different worlds 🌬
We are already ready for winter and first snow here..

Very different indeed! Christmas time is usually quite hot with temperatures over 30°C
Where I live we don’t have snow, even in winter time. Further south and mostly areas of higher altitude will get snow.
We hope to travel to Finland next year as we have a wedding to attend in Scotland and wish to do some travel.

 

[Rick]

Beautiful photo, nothing to criticize.

Thank you, Ron!

 

[Rick]

superb image bravo, it will be necessary to get seriously into it

Thanks Mary! I used four lights for the image and think if I add two more at the bottom pointing up and to the centre of the insect it will provide more details. I will try this sometime soon

 

[Wooly]

G’Day Rick fantastic shot from my perspective. I have also just built a macro light cage based on Allan Walls‘s YouTube videos. For lighting I am using Godoy 64 LED lights USB powered (the cables were purchased from Jaycar Electronics). They throw out a lot of intense light. One thing I did see in one of Allan’s videos was the use of reflective silver paper to bounce light back into subjects to reduce shadows (this can be purchased from Officeworks). Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[Rick]

G’Day Rick fantastic shot from my perspective. I have also just built a macro light cage based on Allan Walls‘s YouTube videos. For lighting I am using Godoy 64 LED lights USB powered (the cables were purchased from Jaycar Electronics). They throw out a lot of intense light. One thing I did see in one of Allan’s videos was the use of reflective silver paper to bounce light back into subjects to reduce shadows (this can be purchased from Officeworks). Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Thanks Wooly! I also based mine off Allan’s but used different lighting. I had two lights above and two point towards the centre from a horizontal plane. I also placed a mirror underneath to reflect light back up towards the belly. I’ll have to go and get some of that silver paper from Officeworks.
the lights are a clamp style from Bunnings with Osram 5.5W(?) 5500k globes that already have a great diffuser. I will get two more though as I reckon these will compliment the system nicely. Really looking forward to imaging other more photogenic subjects

 

[Pixelchimper]

Great stack. Very clean . I have tried all week to get a good stack on a fly but I keep destroying the insect or the lighting is just terrible with artifacts and glowing edges. I suck at this stacking. I do better hand held lol.

 

[Rick]

Great stack. Very clean . I have tried all week to get a good stack on a fly but I keep destroying the insect or the lighting is just terrible with artifacts and glowing edges. I suck at this stacking. I do better hand held lol.

Thanks for the comments. It does take a lot of light, I just picked up a couple more today so I can get more light in the dark areas and maybe even increase my shutter speed to see if it makes a difference to sharpness.
This guy was held using an alligator clip holding the lower parts of the legs, also it wasn’t an old fly so not too crispy!
Good luck with it!

 

[Pixelchimper]

Thanks for the comments. It does take a lot of light, I just picked up a couple more today so I can get more light in the dark areas and maybe even increase my shutter speed to see if it makes a difference to sharpness.
This guy was held using an alligator clip holding the lower parts of the legs, also it wasn’t an old fly so not too crispy!
Good luck with it!

I just purchased 3 lights today and I hope they are better than my last lights. I got voltrox rb10. so far they give out enough light. I never thought about lighting underneath the subject so I will get one more. I have a load of studio lights and flashes that I have never used for macro only portrait photography. They might be too powerful.

 

[Rick]

I just purchased 3 lights today and I hope they are better than my last lights. I got voltrox rb10. so far they give out enough light. I never thought about lighting underneath the subject so I will get one more. I have a load of studio lights and flashes that I have never used for macro only portrait photography. They might be too powerful.

Good luck with it! I look forward to seeing the results.
Cheers

 

[Pixelchimper]

Fab photo and I love the lighting. I am still experimenting with my lighting. I am happy you posted the lighting you used. Going to try it.