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Thread: Flower Fly

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    BPN Member Steve Maxson's Avatar
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    Default Flower Fly

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    Flower Flies (family Syrphidae) make up some 870 species in North America and are excellent mimics of bees and wasps. Despite appearances, they are harmless as well as being valuable pollinators. The small fly in this photo (Toxomerus geminatus) was foraging on a Woodland Sunflower. 40D, Canon 180mm macro, 1/100, f/8, ISO 400. Macro twin flash. Hand held. Manual focus. Comments are welcome.

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    BPN Viewer Dave Leroy's Avatar
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    Lovely photo Steve and thanks for the explanation about the fly. I especially like the composition with the full side of fly and the flower nicely placed. Focus looks spot on. Interesting to see a few aparent natural blemishes in the eye. Very nice. Dave

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    Really sharp with great details on the eye and front leg holding on to the pollen. I can't believe how sharp you get for HH. What setting do you use on the twin-lite???

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    I think you did a great job with this. Very sharp.

  5. #5
    Julie Kenward
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    Geez, I want one of those macro twin lights! You and Roman are killing me with these great images!!!

    I like this 'as is' but think if the yellow continued throughout the image instead of almost intersecting with that one back wing it would be even stronger. I would also remove the spectral highlights in this one as they don't really represent a true 'catch light'. (In other cases I might have left them in.)

    I really like the translucent and soft feel left on the wings and back legs. The body and head is so tack sharp that it really doesn't bother me at all that the back legs are less focused. You did a great job on the yellows as well!

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    BPN Member Steve Maxson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jackie Schuknecht View Post
    Really sharp with great details on the eye and front leg holding on to the pollen. I can't believe how sharp you get for HH. What setting do you use on the twin-lite???
    Hi Jackie. When using the macro twin light I usually set it on Manual mode at 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 power and fire only one of the flash heads. IMO, firing both flash heads often just creates twice as many spectral highlights on these shiny-bodied insects. Sometimes I use the flash as the main light and sometimes as fill, depending on conditions. I usually fire several test shots to decide which flash setting works best in a given situation. One of the things I am trying to avoid is the solid black background that I often get when using the flash in ETTL mode (I still have a lot to learn about flash, by the way). As far as hand holding - I took many photos of this fly, but because of the very narrow DOF, only about 1 in 15 was sharp where I wanted it to be sharp.

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    Thanks for the info Steve, I have one too, but don't really know too much about flash. Will have to start experimenting. Very useful info.

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