Testing my Photography skills

[Eddie O'Neill]

After reading various articles on the forum regarding photography of flies, decided to try it.

First attempt, comments welcome on the photography and the flies I've only been at it a few months.

[emerger1981]

nothing there mate..

[MARAZION MIDGE]

Cant comment on the photo quality, as I'm cr@p at taking photos of flies.
As for the fly you need to sort the rib out, as that one isn't great.
Mike

---------- Post added at 03:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------

Originally Posted by emerger1981

nothing there mate..

Clic on flicker photo sharing.

[Eddie O'Neill]

Originally Posted by MARAZION MIDGE

Cant comment on the photo quality, as I'm cr@p at taking photos of flies.
As for the fly you need to sort the rib out, as that one isn't great.

Thanks, is the second one any better?

[stuartpengs]

They're quite good. The top one is a little out of focus. I see you're using the camera set to aperture priority set to f20, which will give good DOF but maybe at the loss of razor sharpness. Are you using a tripod Eddie? That narrow an aperture will need quite a long exposure time at .6/sec, tricky if hand held.

BTW, the flies are top notch, especially as you've not been doing it long.

[Eddie O'Neill]

Yes I was using a tripod and remote shutter release. I had a bit of trouble with the focus points, hence using f20 to get a good DOF. I did notice on one post that using the hook point as the central focus point was best ?

[christy27]

A few months to tie two flies .

All looks good to me Eddie, well done.

Chris

[stuartpengs]

Originally Posted by Eddie O'Neill

Yes I was using a tripod and remote shutter release. I had a bit of trouble with the focus points, hence using f20 to get a good DOF. I did notice on one post that using the hook point as the central focus point was best ?

The hook point is good as long as the fly is in an accurate vertical plane and level with the camera (unless you want one of the arty shots that Scratch is famous for), but yours look like the camera is slightly higher pointing down which will then alter the focal plane. Maybe have another play with the focus points Eddie, it looks like the background is in focus, which would would again indicate maybe the focus is a little off.

[Scratch]

Not an awful lot wrong there Eddie. Don't forget, seeing as you're using a tripod and cable release, you can use any aperture and shutter speed you like without camera shake being an issue. Make sure you get the fly parallel to the the focal plane (front of lens/back of camera) both horizontaly and vertically. I can see from your shots that the flies are presented a little crooked, and this is the major contibuting factor to the lack of sharpness here and there.
As Stuart says, the smaller your apperture, the less sharp your image will be, but to be honest, you'd be hard pushed to notice the slightest difference. Best thing to do is go for a medium aperture (F8 - F11) and see how that goes. If the DOF is too shallow, then move the fly a couple of cm away from the lens - this will effectively increase the DOF.

Your lighting, and metering/exposure isn't too bad at all

[Mrtrout]

Well done on both counts Eddie, for a first attempt, I think they are brilliant.
S.