fly portrait

[Joe Brown]

Used a drop of honey on a leaf to keep the fly in place.
5D Mk II
MP-e 65mm
f8.0
1/200
ISO 400
580EX II with homemade diffuser

cropped, oof bright spot in lower middle removed, slight smart sharpening, S/H, neat image noise reduction.

http://www.joebrownphotography.net/images/fly1.jpg

C&C welcome

Joe

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Joe, very nice shot here. Love the compound eye. I might have tried a narrower aperture to increase DOF. did you use a tripod?

[Joe Brown]

Thanks for the comments Allen,
I used a monopod. Using this lens, you focus by moving the lens foreward or back. I find using a monopod is best way to hold the camera reasonably steady and focus.

The MP-e 65mm is unique maco lens with 1 to 5X magnification.
It has an effective f-number = f-number x magnification + 1. Therefore my shot would have an effective f-number of 8x2+1= 17.
At 5Xs the effective number can range up to near 100. Thus, it needs lots of light to properly expose the image. Also at smaller apertures the IQ suffers. Very shallow dof is unfortunately is fact with high magnification macros and this lens. People often use image stacking software such as combinez5 to increase dof at high magnification.

Joe

[Julie Kenward]

Joe this is a great fly portrait! Excellent details in the face area - I'm not sure I've ever seen it so detailed in this same way before.

My only qualms with this one is that I can't see the end of the tongue and front feet - gosh if the lip of that leaf were just a tiny bit further down...it would really put this one over the top. Great idea for using honey to get him to stay around - I'm totally stealing that come summer. ;)

[Mike Moats]

Any shot this close is tough and you did a nice job. Good details.:o

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Joe, thanks for sharing your fly luring technique! You captured an amazing amount of detail here. I would prefer a little more color. I like your composition and use of DOF.

[Vida van der Walt]

Hi Joe. Great shot. Lovely eye detail in this. Agree with a bit more colour. I use this lens and camera as well (only a different flash) and although the lens is sharper at f8, I mostly use f16 for shots like these to maximize dof. I feel an image can always be sharpened but not much can be done to regain dof. I normally don't find noise a problem but I use iso 100 or 200.:)

[Joe Brown]

Thanks very much everyone for your comments. Vida special thanks for your suggestions on the use of the lens. I will definitely give this a try.

Joe