Awesome hoverfly - odd puncture

[yeatzee]

So I caught this hoverfly and fed it multiple times with honey/syrup and water. Eventually however it got very sluggish and could no longer fly. I knew it's life was at an end so I did the "humane" thing and tossed the poor girl (?) into the freezer and did a couple stacks. Im not terribly pleased with the resulting image..... I've already gotten comments about low contrast but on my monitor its just right (IMO) but the technical stuff is not whats bothering me. I feel like it should be more diagonal in the frame or something I guess....

Anyways 100+ images with el nikkor 50mm F/2.8 reversed on bellows. 3 ikea jansjo's used, background was something I've never tried before but worked fairly well. My laptop I simply pulled up a picture from google images and that was that


Beautiful bee-mimicking hoverfly by yeatzee (now 17, but still learning), on Flickr

Cool eyes huh? One thing I found particularly interested after reviewing the stack was the hole in its head. Some type of puncture wound I hadn't noticed before..... anyone know the cause? Maybe a parasite or something?

[yeatzee]

and the obligatory head-on shot


Hoverfly head-on by yeatzee (now 17, but still learning), on Flickr

[rjlittlefield]

Interesting images -- very high key. Is that an artistic impression, or does the beast naturally give that impression?

About the puncture, it's very odd and I have no idea what would have done that. Is there just the one hole?

--Rik

[yeatzee]

Interesting images -- very high key. Is that an artistic impression, or does the beast naturally give that impression?

About the puncture, it's very odd and I have no idea what would have done that. Is there just the one hole?

--Rik

Ugh, no I am not using an artistic impression. It looks fine on my monitor (the first being a bit bright, but not bad by any means on my screen).... barely anything is "blown" as far as I can tell. Again it looks fine on my monitor, and thats the best I can do.

Nope thats the only hole on its body.

[rjlittlefield]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that anything looks blown. It's just that the overall coloration looks a lot lighter than any other hoverflies I remember, so I wondered if perhaps you'd taken a naturally darker fly and brightened it up to look better. I've certainly done that from time to time, including with the fruit fly that became Zerene's mascot (HERE). That beast looked very dark, almost black, until I poured a bunch of light onto it to bring out the details.

--Rik

[yeatzee]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that anything looks blown. It's just that the overall coloration looks a lot lighter than any other hoverflies I remember, so I wondered if perhaps you'd taken a naturally darker fly and brightened it up to look better. I've certainly done that from time to time, including with the fruit fly that became Zerene's mascot (HERE). That beast looked very dark, almost black, until I poured a bunch of light onto it to bring out the details.

--Rik

oooooh, gotcha! I feel much better now

I always slightly overexpose to get more shadow detail (plus I prefer the aesthetics that way) but this fly was quite light. My setup definitely made it slightly lighter however.

A quick google search result to illustrate roughly how light its body was.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gmazza/514 ... otostream/
(though to me he underexposed a bit)

Mine was MUCH more vibrant in the eyes. I did not touch the saturation sliders except for the bg, thats its natural color. Unfortunately that disappeared only hours after shooting

[ChrisRaper]

Lovely photos - a little over-exposed (but I usually do that myself to bring out detail in the shadows) but the colours should be fine for a species of Eristalinus ... I think that's the correct genus. They have the most amazing eye patterns and in many ways are equally exciting as the more photographed horse-flies

[Harold Gough]

girl (?)

The males are holoptic so the clearly separated eyes make it a female.

I quite like the high key.

Harold

[yeatzee]

thanks guys

Im a little behind in responding but the very next day i went to take some closer mag. shots and the eyes completely faded. Pretty incredible!

[abpho]

Good work. Now who is finding the insects? It is getting colder here and I have not seem much lately. And just when I was starting to get back into it. I'll have to go on the hunt.

I find that I have to capture the insect. Get my rig set up. Then start taking shots right away. Some insects show discolouration in the eyes by the second day in the freezer.