Long Legged Fly (Dolichopodidae)

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 7:22 am

A few shots of a little Long Legged Fly (Dolichopodidae) I took a couple of weeks ago...

Firstly with minimal diffusion (a cylinder of a new material I've been playing with)

Secondly same pose with a stonger diffuser (sawn off ping pong ball)

And lastly the same fly, slightly different angle after the fly has been at room temperature for about a day, showing the colours in the eye are already gone (also used ping pong ball)

All shot with Nikon 10x/0.30 CF-N objective, stacked with Zerene PMAX. Stacks of 117, 108 and 134 respectively.

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 7:46 am

An HDR combined (just simply stacked?) image of the first two might be interesting.

Harold

yeatzee · Post by **yeatzee** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 2:32 pm

could you take a picture of lighting setup with the ping pong ball? I'd love to see what it looks like because that lighting is pretty much perfect

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:27 pm

Thanks for the comments chaps!

I don't have a shot of the lighting setup but I will try to oblige over the next few days...

Harold, good idea, they don't line up exactly so I'll have to tweak the alignment a bit but I will have a go and see what I can come up with.

Martin G. · Post by **Martin G.** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:53 pm

very nice, like the second one the best!

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 3:33 am

Very nice! Long legged flies have spectacular faces. I have shot some too the last weeks and found one with green eyes with a remarkable pattern. There is hint of this pattern in the second image but it is so faint it is almost not there.

What is also nice about dolichopodids is the crest of hairs around the back of the head. Like a lion's mane.

Wim

DrLazer · Post by **DrLazer** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:10 pm

That explains a lot Laurie. Did you see my recent stack of a long legged fly? I had it stood at room temperature for about two days. I couldn't figure out why it's eyes were not green.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:55 pm

Wim, agreed, they're one of my favourite insects to shoot! I look forward to seeing your shots...

Craig yes this happens quite quickly, I always try to shoot them as soon as they are out of the freezer, usually allowing just a little while for the worst of any condensation to evaporate before I start.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:42 pm

Here's a shot of my ping pong ball, sorry it's a bit wonky, shot with my iPhone from the rear with the phone at arms length where I couldn't see the screen, it's a miracle really that it came out in focus and on the subject!

tpe · Post by **tpe** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 2:02 pm

Wonderfull and so good to see those furry eyes in such fine detail and lighting.

Tim

yeatzee · Post by **yeatzee** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 3:22 pm

Dang.... I think I need to see something like this in person with the subject setup. I still dont quite understand it

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:52 pm

Okay there's extraneous stuff in the shot - basically what we're looking at is a ping pong ball which is obviously a sphere, with the top and bottom cut off with a knife, and then roughly straightened with sandpaper. This ends up in a sort of doughnut shape, in this case the hole at the bottom is slightly wider than the hole at the top.

The camera is mounted vertically above the subject, pointing straight down (Through the hole in the top of the ping-pong ball). The subject is sat on a microscope slide which is horizontally placed on the minimal stage of the microscope, the ping pong ball is then placed on the slide, around the subject. The camera is then lowered down, in this case I'm using the OM38/2.8 with a fancy reflector mounted on the front of it but more commonly I use the Nikon 10x/0.30 CF-N objective, the working distance is much shorter than shown here and the lens actually pokes down into the hole in the top of the ping-pong ball.

Ignore the stuff below the stage, that's messing around with the light on the background.

Does that make any sense?

yeatzee · Post by **yeatzee** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:23 pm

So the subjects just laying flat on the slide? How did you get it to sit as it is in the pictures? How do you get the bg's?

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 6:27 pm

This specimen is just laying on it's side on the slide yes. Sometimes they are propped up on their wings or on bluetac or some card.

The background is on the microscope base hidden inside that diffuser at the bottom which in this case is not being used as diffuser but just as a stand for those bits of card which are reducing flash light to the bg...

abpho · Post by **abpho** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:14 am

Great work. This really proves how critical the diffuser is.