Fly photos without a camera

[Cap'n Fishy]

Not sure if this is more Fly-tying or more Fishing Photos?

Anyroad, it came up out of a thread where Scratch and me were muckin' about with close-up shots, and I had a go at doing a still life using my scanner. It's a basic model and has a centre strip that can be used for scanning 35 mm film negs at high resolution. I've not had much use for it, but I had a go at putting a fly in, in place of the film.

I used one of Scratch's buzzers to start with, as at this stage I thought let's leave feather fibres out of it.

Here's my first go at it...



That was actually the second scan, as the first, on auto exposure, was too dark, having read too much into all the white background, so I upped the exposure to 190%.

It's always going to be a high-key affair, I think. However, some interesting detail can be had. The scan was done at 6400 dpi (not even the highest resolution), and here's the level of detail you get at near 100% zoom...







Nice to see Scratch isn't taking the points off his hooks before he sends you his buzzers

Give it a go. Let's see some results with hackles...

[Scratch]

Nice work Col..... Can I send you my 2010 range

[benlikestofish]

I will be interested in the results. I tried this a while back and made little white boxes and all sorts to mount flies on scanner, but found that it couldn't focus on anything.
If someone can make this work it would make recording patterns a sinch!

Cheers
Ben

[Cap'n Fishy]

Originally Posted by benlikestofish

I will be interested in the results. I tried this a while back and made little white boxes and all sorts to mount flies on scanner, but found that it couldn't focus on anything.
If someone can make this work it would make recording patterns a sinch!

Cheers
Ben

Aye, it's pretty much just going to focus on what's hard against the glass. Need to keep it to flies that are fairly 2-dimensional - nymphs such as Diawl Bachs, wets such as butchers, and so on.

Col

[whitfurno]

I copied and pasted your original image into a free programme from Microsoft named Paint.net but any reliable photo processing programme would work. I then used adjust/levels. Taking the hook as a datum which seemed to carry too much blue. I unticked blue and in the bottom half of the curves took the line upwards. This got me back to what looked like the original hook colour. Sounds more complicated than it is. Anyway, play about with adjusting the image with a processing programme and you might be surprised with the results. I can't post mine since I don't use photobucket but some of the real experts should come up with something.

[BRUCE1]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Fishy

Not sure if this is more Fly-tying or more Fishing Photos?







Give it a go. Let's see some results with hackles...

just been messing with yours .bloodworm buzzer...............

[urbanflyman]

what a great idea im going to have a wee look at trying this too , fantastic scan in the first pic .

[andy macbog]

Yeah,

Great effect! I like the way that you get to see the fly with some light transmitted through it, rather than just reflected as it would be with a camera. It probably gives you a better impression of how the fly looks in the water?

Nice idea,

Andy

[Fishtales]

All the single fly images on this page were done with a scanner as I didn't have a digital camera at the time


http://www.ftscotland.co.uk/gallery/...cial_flys.html


Here is a sample image.



I made up a box of loose expanded foam strip and sat the flies in the centre moving the strips making the size of the box to match the fly. As you can see there is a fair bit of shadow produced but I feel it gives the fly depth. This was on my first scanner which only went to 600dpi and I haven't tried it with my new one yet

[Cap'n Fishy]

Originally Posted by andy macbog

Yeah,

Great effect! I like the way that you get to see the fly with some light transmitted through it, rather than just reflected as it would be with a camera. It probably gives you a better impression of how the fly looks in the water?

Nice idea,

Andy

Hi Andy/

I liked the transmitted light effect too - just an accidental by-product of the way the scanner does film negs, as opposed to the way the flat-bed bit works. Well worth further experiment to try and get a view more like the way a fish sees a fly against the surface.

The alternative would be to backlight the fly when using a camera - I'll maybe try a bit experimenting with that too.

Cheers,

Col