Another Fly

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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royalwinchester
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Another Fly

Post by royalwinchester »

5X on SonyA7rII with Canon MP-E

click for full size...

Image

100% crop of the cheek area...

Image

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

That's nice and sharp. Is this flash or continuous lighting?
Chris R

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Nice image!

In the full size, I notice some interesting "spiral hairs". They are located next to the bright highlight on the eye.

I don't recall having seen such things before.

--Rik

royalwinchester
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Post by royalwinchester »

Thanks, Chris!
This is flash-lit. I had a Nikon SB-800 and a Paul C. Buff ABR-800 optically slaved. I used a couple ping pong balls as diffusers, but unlike I've ever done before, I didn't put the specimen inside a ping pong ball, I just put them around it to block any direct light hitting the fly. It was also a surprisingly quick stack to capture as I had almost no settle time, just 2 sec between shots. No mirror lockup or any of the things I try to do to kill vibration with my Nikon and the Mitty 10x.

royalwinchester
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Post by royalwinchester »

Thanks Rik!
I noticed those too, when I was retouching.
I am not sure if they are natural or caused by a little fluid condensation during stilling, giving the fly a perm? Those hairs are a bit blurry, perhaps because my lighting still isn't diffused well enough...

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

I'm guessing natural. As far as I know, those hairs are composed of chitin. Their shape is not easily altered.

The sharpness looks good to me. At 5X, you'll be getting a significant amount of diffraction blurring on that high-pixel-count full frame sensor. Exif data says f/3.2 for this image, which will be effective f/19.2 from the camera's standpoint.

--Rik

royalwinchester
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Post by royalwinchester »

That makes sense...
So, I should have used f2.8 to help the diffraction blur just a bit?

Ultima_Gaina
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Post by Ultima_Gaina »

Nice one! I like your colors. I reckon these beasts need a lot of careful retouching. Zerene can only do so much, and it is easy to overlook details in that forest of bristles.

You might want to do a little more retouching under the right compound eye, where I can spot a forgotten DMap artifact.

Image

royalwinchester
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Post by royalwinchester »

Thanks, Ultima!

Good catch! I'm sure there are more I missed too! I did a few stack selected mini stacks to give me retouching source. Especially that bristly hair the goes right in front of the eye. Many artifacts of my retouching there for sure!

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Nevertheless, very nice work!!

royalwinchester
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Post by royalwinchester »

Thanks, Lou!

anvancy
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Post by anvancy »

The details are phenomenal.

At times common subjects look mesmerizing under the lens.
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