Robberflies

[Wim van Egmond]

I've been making some new stacks. This is an image of 2 robberflies made of 8 or 9 stacked images. I supported the camera on my rugsack and moved slowly closer with the camera and so I could take the different focus layers. When the insects are on the ground this works well.

It seems a bit nonsence to stack this subject but this way you can use a wide aperture, good resolution and still get all the important features in focus and retain a nice blurry background. It is not a very colorful or beautiful picture but it is not a pleasant scene.

I first thought they were mating but when you look at the tips of their abdomen they seem similar. I don't think there are gay flies so I assume these are two males fighting and it could even be cannibalism. On this image it is not clear if the proboscis is piercing. Perhaps it is visible on some of the other images I took. I have to see.

Below a cropped part of the image. 50%

Wim

[rjlittlefield]

Wim, this is great! We don't see much stacking of live subjects in this forum, and it's nice to see somebody "pushing the envelope".

BTW, there's a macro shooter who goes by usernames like LordV, who posts in some other forums and does great work with stacks shot in the field. He wrote this tutorial about some of his techniques.

--Rik

[Wim van Egmond]

Thanks Rik,

I always have these tricks in the back of my mind when I take pictures. So when the subject keeps still, I always take some extra image with a deeper focus layer. I use it quite often.

More later about techniques! have to go!

Wim

[jmlphoto]

gay robberflys hahaha that made me laugh early in the morning. great stack, very good detail and everything seems to be in focus. sometimes shots like this are impossible because of movement but sometimes its just right. what did you use to stitch them together.