I recently got a new camera, it's a Canon Ixus 105, and it is far better than my last for taking close ups of flies etc.
I used to do a lot of photography back in the days when the Olympus OM1 was the camera to have, my how things have changed.
Anyway I intend to get a bit more involved in showing the odd fly for your criticism, and what I want to know is, what do you consider the best background colour to highlight the fly.
I tried a couple of shots the other night, and used a piece of cell foam in green, it was Ok, anything you can recommend please.
I wont be using fancy light boxes just the normal built in flash, and my anglepoise light.
Thanks S.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

I tend to prefer blue, dark gray and black.

Blue is probably the best colour to use.

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A Bad Days Fishing Is Better Than A Good Day At Work

I have all those colours darwin, any particular reason.
S.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

S, I did a bit of experimenting with backgrounds earlier in the year and came to the conclusion that it depends on the fly.
Here's a couple of examples:

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“Let’s TACKLE Cancer” supporter

personal choice in a way... but I feel these colours do not compete with the colours on the flies (when lighting is not under or over powering and allows the fly to be the main attraction and not just part of the picture. Getting lighting right when using black is important.

You prolly have seen this site, I think I found it on here. Welcome to Fly Art Studio :: Fly Art Studio

I have seen people go to extremes with fly photography. I kept it simple and found that a beige place mat from the table worked out best. For light I use the 40 watt spot bulb that is in the jewelers lamp that I tie with. Very important that you adjust the white balance of the camera to accommodate the lighting source. Below are pictures of flies some that are strong contrast to the background color and some that are very similar to it.

Fly having neutral earth tone colors;

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Contrasting colors of red / orange;

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A bit of each;

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For the large part the color is good all with the same background. That white balance thing is the key.

Ard

All first class gents, thanks, I shall have a try again tomorrow.
S.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

Ard,
Very nice work with the flies & photographs.

Mr. T
This may be of interest Light Box & Backgrounds

"Back in the day" exposure meters were made to work with just black & white, the meters were set up to have a mid-point of 18% grey. Digi has virtually taken over from film these days, a bit like a computer running on windows98 has been super-ceded by later versions of the same operating system, just more refined versions of it.

Shades of blue, are fairly near to the middle of the visible light spectrum. So metering from them is less challenging, for many cameras operating systems/operators than colours at the extremities of this spectrum. Film was generally at its best when kept to the middle of the spectrum. This is all so far been based using natural daylight, when artificial light/flash get involved it's a different thing entirely.

As well as numerous different types of film(s) for different lighting conditions/effects etc, there are various coloured filters that can be fitted in front of the lens to modify the colour the film sees & the effect you are trying to create. For example a daylight film used under normal fluorescent lighting would make a photo green-ish, so you'd use a lilac coloured filter to correct this.

Most of this type of work can now be done "in-camera" with "white balance" etc as well as numerous computer programs used after the image has been transferred.

Most modern digi-lenses have slightly different coatings on them than the earlier versions, as they way the meter works in conjunction with the other internals is very slightly different. It's rare these days to see a d.s.l.r. user with a lens hood, where as with a film s.l.r. it was virtually the norm in bright conditions. It stopped stray light from entering the lenses field of view & giving inaccurate metering. Most new lenses can generally cope with this type of thing happening by the use of updated coatings in conjunction with modern software.