Photographing flies

[Trout Of Doubt]

As some might have noticed from a couple of my other threads, I've not yet mastered taking decent pictures of fies.

I'm using a decent digital compact camera with a macro setting, and I've got the camera braced so it doesn't shake, but I can't find a decent way to get the auto focus on the right thing.
I've noticed others use backgrounds which I suspect help, but how do you get crystal clear close ups?

[neil26]

i had a go at taking pictures of flies with my pentax w80 compact but the camera was useless for this- the shutter speed cannot be long enough and the aperture is not small enough for good macro depth of field.
now i use my old manual lenses on a digital slr and use manual settings.
- and lighting and background are important.

[flytire]

heres an excellent place to start

Fly Art Studio

[HOOK]

Hi idris, Look to Cap'n Fishy and Scratch's report in A Fisherman's Guide to Fishing Photography on the main pages of this Forum.

Robbie

[christy27]

My first fly photo.

[christy27]

The day I got my new camera I took the above photo. I know very little about digital photography. The camera did it all for me. Simply put it onto macro zoom and hey presto.

Panasonic Lumix DMC FS62, not expensive but scores high in What Digital mag. It is set on fully auto. Point and shoot, exactly what I wanted.

Never noticed the barb is broken till I looked at the photo.

To my untrained eye it looks ok.