Asking for Trouble..........

[byhaugh1]

Hi,

I'm trying to improve my photos of my flies. I admit this isn't a real nice fly, but regardless, I am taking a bunch of photos under different settings, light, etc. I don't have a very good camera, so I can't control a lot of factors.

As usual, the depth of field is an issue without being able to close the aperature down below 2.8

Anyway, let me know if this is a decent photo or not.

Thanks, and given my constraints, any help would be appreciated.

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by byhaugh1

I admit this isn't a real nice fly

I don't agree mate... I think it's a cracker, and can see that one nailing fish in few different situations.

Anyway, the pic... Firstly, I'm not sure why you say that you can't stop the aperture down any more? Will your camera not let you use macro in conjunction with full manual mode? Not to worry though, should be able to manage some extra D.O.F. by moving the fly further away from the camera. How close was the fly to the lens on that shot?

Lighting could be better... No big deal though.. trial and error with that.

Background is a bit distracting. Whacky backgrounds and colours etc work well with more impressionistic shots, but with a standard side-on shot intended to simply document and show the fly, then I think a plain background works better.

[byhaugh1]

Originally Posted by Scratch

nyway, the pic... Firstly, I'm not sure why you say that you can't stop the aperture down any more? Will your camera not let you use macro in conjunction with full manual mode? Not to worry though, should be able to manage some extra D.O.F. by moving the fly further away from the camera. How close was the fly to the lens on that shot?

Yes, thanks. I will move the fly further away. Will try that!

[byhaugh1]

I tried your suggestions and got this:

[Hardyreels]

Wow, if my bad pictures or flies looked like that I would be really pleased!

[robbiejam]

DOF is always limited when taking macro shots, even at f16 your focussing has to be very accurate. There is a way around it called focus stacking which is a number of shots taken with different focus planes then merged together with software to give a pin sharp image that's all in focus. Might be a bit overkill for taking pictures of tied flies but it would give a nice result.

[flytire]

the second foto is the best one yet that you have posted on all of the boards you post on

i would crop it down even further, but that me.

very eye pleasing background color.

[Scratch]

Nice one Byhaugh, much much better.

Now, only you can tell us, how have the colours of the flt been rendered... more or less true to the fly? How about your white balance?

Looks like you've got somewhere near your optimum distance there for your camera/lens. Sharp as a tack!

The new background looks the ideal kind of tone - won't cause too many metering problems, and is quite pleasing, calm and not distracting.

How much better do you want it to get?

Agree with Flytire though.... a tighter crop and it would then be perfect. I like the fly to be able to 'breathe', but not have too much dead space either. I favour a square crop when the size and shape of the fly permits. The image quality you've got there will allow a close crop.

Made a crop for you here.... and tweaked the contrast a little too.

[byhaugh1]

Thanks so much! Really helped me. Yes, the colors are accurate.
Thanks again!

[flytire]

this would be my amount of cropping