Horsefly - Haematopota crassicornis? (new shots added)

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lauriek
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Horsefly - Haematopota crassicornis? (new shots added)

Post by lauriek »

Horse fly of the genus Haematopota possibly Haematopota crassicornis

First stack of this, hope to get some more angles over the weekend!

Image

And a crop (this is not quite 100% I had to resize down by 20% or so to get the eye to fit an 800px box!)


Image

I also had to use a lot of jpeg compression to get this image uploaded so sorry if it's not quite right!!
Last edited by lauriek on Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

This looks great to me! :D

These are such pretty animals. Too bad they hurt so much when they bite! :(

--Rik

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Thanks Rik! :D I couldn't believe my luck when this lady landed on me the other day, I've been on the lookout for one of these for years now! (I've seen other horseflies but not with these eyes!)

My book says these are common and widespread, well you wouldn't think so the amount of time I spend out looking for bugs and not seen one 'till now! Fortunately I managed to get her in a pot before she could bite through my t-shirt! :)

I've heard this about the bites - how come it hurts so much, wouldn't it be better for the fly if it didn't hurt, it could then take it's time over the drink. Presumably as it is, it's a kind of hit and run affair, land, big bite, big suck, take off!!

This one was a half cheating stack, did the front half in small focus steps at f5.6 and the rear of the bug at f11 and fewer bigger steps. Unfortunately another stack I did of the same angle with a slightly wider FOV but all fine focus steps at f5.6 has some alignment issues...

Gérard-64
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Post by Gérard-64 »

Lauriek,as always:fantastic..

Planapo
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Post by Planapo »

I agree, this is, as always, a great photo, Laurie!

As to the genus name: There is a typo: You twisted the a and the e, it should read Haematopota , translates from Greek as blood-drinker or -sucker.

--Betty

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Many thanks Betty, now corrected.. I really should have spotted that!

ETA does anyone have any idea why the eyes on these things are patterned like that? Is it some sort of camouflage or does it aid the vision in some way?

Alex
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Post by Alex »

The eye is wonderful....

As I am very new to all of this, I have a few questions :
Stacks are various photos with different focus points combined into one to have a larger DOF right ? If yes, using a very high F/ stop like F22 wouldn't simply do the trick ?

As I am sure that I am not the first one asking these questions, can anyone point me to a place where I could spend hours reading and still learning new things on ultra-macro photography ? (like a place where the basis are explained)

Thanks in advance, I'm really happy someone pointed me to this forum :D
Alex

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Alex,

Welcome to the wonderful world of focus stacking, where the computer now assembles pictures that the laws of physics say you can't get in a single shot. :D

Stopping down is not a solution. There is a physical effect that photographers usually just call "diffraction", that causes images to become fuzzy when the cone of light gets very narrow.

At high magnifications, you have to use large apertures to get high resolution. The large aperture and high magnification causes very shallow DOF, so you are left with the slicing effect seen through a microscope: only a very thin section of a 3D subject will be in focus at any one time.

The essence of focus stacking is to shoot a "stack" containing many such pictures, focused in different planes, then have the computer assemble a single image from well-focused parts throughout the stack.

For a quick overview (now somewhat dated!), see "An Introduction to Extended Depth of Field Digital Photography".

Links to lots of reading in the forum can be found here. Again, that list is a bit dated, but it will get you going.

An extended discussion of how "diffraction" actually works can be found at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4030, starting with Graham Stabler's post near the bottom of the first page.

I hope this is helpful -- please feel free to ask whatever questions come up. If you have general questions, think about starting a new topic over in the Technique and Technical Discussions forum. That way it will be easier for other people to find later.

--Rik

Alex
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Post by Alex »

Thanks a lot Rick :D
Alex

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Post by beetleman »

Excellent stack and subject Laurie. Very nice detail on the biting mouthparts. The Deer Flies wil be out soon in New Hampshire and they are no fun. My theory on the eyes :-k .......you need to move the antennae around to get better reception 8)
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Thanks Doug, like your theory, will try re-tuning it later on!! :D

Here's another shot of just the eye taken with the Nikon 10x CF plan objective (this is the bug's other eye!)


Image

Just testing out a new 'frame' - any comments appreciated as ever!

As this doesn't look that different to the crop above at web size, here's a little crop at 100% pixel size...

Image

The colours in this part of the eye remind me of tie-died t-shirts! :)

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Post by nto »

Amazing!!! crop Lauriek, i think risky and ambiguous composition with 10x :D
Antonio

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Interesting crop of the 10X. I see this one's got that funny checkerboard artifact too. I wonder why TuFuse gives that. Have you tested CZP on the same stacks to see what it does on them?

About the new frame, that istockphoto URL strikes me as a clearcut no-no. Second sentence of the Posting Guidelines: "The promotion of images for sale or imaging services for hire is strictly forbidden. "

Other than that, my personal reaction to the new frame is that it detracts from the photo by being too bold and stark. I'm more a fan of understated frames and striking photos -- a combination that's easy to get with your work! :D

--Rik

PS. At istockphoto, is that your smiling face in the car mirror?

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Rik,

Sorry about that, I put that on as an afterthought after watching the discussion about stolen images and the orphan works thing. How can I remove that now? If I'd linked the image from my site then I could easily edit, reupload and it would fix it but as I've uploaded the image to the site I'm not sure how to fix...

I've just got CZP and started playing with it - no direct comparison stacks so far but I will do some soon..

That is my mug on iStock yes! ;)

L.

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Post by rjlittlefield »

lauriek wrote:How can I remove that now?
Not a problem. You already removed it from display by editing the posting to reference a new image with a modified frame. That takes care of the whole issue as far as I'm concerned.

The photomacrography.net image archives are full of jpeg's that aren't actually referenced. (Wrong image uploaded, poster changed their mind, whatever.) They're invisible and they cost so close to nothing that they're not worth spending time to identify and delete.

Your iStock portfolio contains nice images. For sure I'll spend some time over there looking around. We just need to keep this particular forum non-commercial.

I'm looking forward to the CZP comparisons. I've been so short of time, haven't been able to run any myself.

--Rik

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