Fly Head
Common fly head - Handheld Focus Stack
Common fly head - Handheld Focus Stack
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May, 2017Views
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mihrt
May 21, 2017
Impressive detail captured ! I try to do some reading on your Website whenever I can - always learn something new Keith !
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BantamPhotography
July 26, 2017
Keith, all your work is truly masterful. Wonderful insight into the deep Macro world
stone12
December 20, 2017
Awesome - but i cant help but wonder if my dinner is sometimes shared with this intruder. But the shot is so powerful !
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken at the entrance to my neighborhood in Valrico FL. However it is a common fly and they are everywhere.Time
This shot was taken at a little after eight in the morning. It is supposed to be easier to take photos of bugs in the morning as they are less active. However, I have more trouble finding them.Lighting
The lighting for this shot was provided by a Canon MR 14 EX Ring Flash. This flash has some real positives as well as negatives. The positive is that it provides very nice even light all around a subject, and it is close to the subject for short flash duration times. The negative is that if the subject is reflective you have a doughnut reflection (white circle with a black hole in it). The second negative is that it makes the end of the lens larger in diameter, which restricts in some cases the angle you can shoot as you are very close to the subject.Equipment
This was shot with a Canon 5D MK II with a MPE-65 lens and a MR 14 EX flash. The settings were 1/200 at f9, ISO 100. This was shot hand held and it is a focus stack of about 5 images. I had heard that people could hand hold a camera and shoot a focus stack and I never believed it. However I had just purchased the MPE - 65 lens a couple of days before and I realized that if it could be done I would need to figure out how as there is no depth of field and at over f/11 it sort of becomes very soft. I did figure out how to hand hold the camera and shoot the stack and I now sell a manual on how to do it at www.macroshooting.com. I only sell a few copies a year but it covers the hosting of the site which should be useful to those wanting to learn more about photographing live bugs. Anyway what made this shot possible is that the bug is sitting on something about the size of a piece of rice on the edge of a rock wall. So I had something to rest my hand on, I could shoot even with the subject (not looking down) and I had a background so it would not be the normal black from light fall off from the flash.Inspiration
I enjoy hunting bugs and taking their photographs. So it is really two things the hunt and the photographing. You have to work with the surroundings you have and the camera setup you have in your hand as they never wait for you to change a lens which makes it more challenging.Editing
I was beginning to learn about focus stacking when I took this shot. So I don't know if I did it correctly or not. I put them through Helicon Focus for stacking and then I processed the output in LightRoom. There was not a lot of processing of this image in LightRoom. I later converted it for a black and white contest on ViewBug. For what it is worth this is a major crop of an image that is exceptionally sharp. This image prints well at 16 X 20 as you can see the detail in the eye, at 8 X 10 this looks smooth and nowhere near as good. I am not talking just the head but the entire bug. So for my entry I cropped out the body.In my camera bag
For what it is worth I don't usually use a camera bag. I have numerous ones and I have tried all kinds of styles from companies like Domke, Pelican Tamrac, LowePro etc. What I have ended up with is I store everything in an individual case. I have no particular favorite brand. I have lens cases from LowePro, Thinktank, and some Chinese ones as well. I put a tag on the lens case so I will know what is in it as they are all black and some are the same size. I then put what I want to take in a Stanley Fatmax box. The Faxmax boxes are tool boxes with a weather proof seal. They are similar to a Pelican case only much lighter and 10 percent of the cost. They are not the quality of a Pelican case but I don't need a pressure relief valve etc. When I go out to photograph bugs I always bring a flash. Which model really depends upon the mood that I am in. I have a 270 EXII, a 580 EXII, a MT-24 and Canon's Ring Flash. There are positives and negatives for each model. I always use a flash bracket to move the flash closer to the subject. I have numerous ones but what I like the best is a Magic Arm mounted to Custom Brackets Mini CB-RC. For a camera I usually use a Canon 5D MK II. For lenses I always have a 100mm Macro in my bag and either a Canon MP-65 or an old Canon 28-80 (the 28-90 is better but mine broke) and a Novoflex reversing ring. I also have a 24-105 kit lens and a 100-400 lens as well in my box. I don't lug any of this around. I go to the park take a quick look around to see what is available to shoot. I then pull out what I want from the trunk of my car. If I am not shooting bugs and have to walk to some location I just pull out what I want and put it in a light weight nylon backpack. For what it is worth I attended a workshop in Maine a couple of years ago and was laughed at as I was using my daughters old purple, white and black Jansport backpack from middle school. No one would steal a bag like this and everything inside was very well protected. Second I only carried what I needed to make the shot, an extra wide angle lens, filters etc. not items that would be useless to me on that shoot. Others had numerous lenses in very well padded massive backpacks and they never used any of it yet they were lugging it down to the site.Feedback
Although this shot is a focus stack and I sell a manual on how to do it, you can get amazing shots without stacking. To me hand held focus stacks are something eventually you need to learn to do if you want to photograph bugs. However, if you say I am going to go out and shoot a stack today you maybe disappointed as only certain circumstances make it a good choice or even possibility. I have written a little manual on how to photograph live bugs. It is free and posted on www.macroshooting.com. It is called "Three days to Better Bug Photography" In a nut shell it will tell you most of what you read online about photographing live bugs is not true. Most was written by pros that have never done it, or done it well on a consistent basis. Do not read this manual and say "Oh I know that, I'm not going to do the exercise", if you do you won't get better. You really need to do the exercises to prove these things to yourself. I assure you it is not the equipment it is you. I can get a shots like this one with an old $40 lens and a reverse adapter. (I actually have) Or even better is a reversed Nikon Enlarger lens on a bellows, killer quality but more difficult to master. What you need to understand to do this is that you need to have absolutely, positivity no camera movement at all and the camera has to be at the perfect angle. The perfect angle is really a "Magic Angle" as DOF is virtually non-existent with increased magnification. Because of the non-existent DOF you need to manually focus and put the top, bottom, left and right plane of focus on the perfect spot. This comes with practice, not from auto focus. The no camera movement comes from the flash and the line "Flash stops all camera movement" is not correct at all and I can easily prove it. For consistent good shots you really need to be at about a 1/4 or less flash power
