One neat looking fly!

[LordV]

Brian,

Yep, the animal subjects in these deep stacks are almost always dead.

There are a few exceptions, like Charlie's "horsefly" in the old forum, and my recent "face of a hobo" and "orb weaving spider".

The problem is, it takes several minutes just to shoot the 30-100 frames required for these shots, and getting something like a fly to hold still for that long is pretty challenging!

There is some discussion of the ethics of this issue here, in the old forum.

--Rik

Thanks for the links Rik. Some interesting and excellent shots and discussion. My own ethic is non- interference shooting but fully appreciate other people's different attitudes. I even bend my own rules by sometimes baiting bugs or moving them if I can to an easier shooting location, but I always put them back again

Brian V.

[tpe]

Hey charles, sorry to boar you by saying how good the shot is, you must have heard it so many times . But the lighting is so nice, extreemly even, that usually i am not too sure on, but in this case works wonderfully to bring out the detail, and the resolution on the especially all the hairs is fantastic, that horrid blurring that i hate is absent and it really shows all the different hair types. Many years ago i worked on fly genetics and one of the interesting things was how the hairs developed and why, but in those days we just did not have this kind of picture, the best shots were probably through a powerfull sterio microscope, and the DOF was limited to the instrument. This made it very difficult to get a good overall picture of the fly (hair) phenotype, and having shots like this would probably have made the range of observable phenotyps much broader and easier to difine. Perhaps it can rekindle some of the more indeterminate results of some of the earlier experiments that got dropped. It would be really nice to see some drosophila, and their various instars. I am not sure if you are interested but i am sure there are still many research institutes that would kill to get pictures like this of some of their mutants. The most famous one would of course be antenopedia, which i am sure would make a pretty dramatic subject for a stack.

tim

[DaveW]

Many thanks Charles, a picture is certainly worth a thousand words.

Hello Brian V,

I have seen your excellent close-up's on other sites, and I am sure we all will enjoy seeing them here.

Hi Tim,

Are these fly hairs sensory hairs, responding to touch rather like a cats whiskers?

DaveW

[tpe]

Hey Dave yes as far as i now they do, at least some of them, there are apparently loads of different types, and i am now about 15 years out of date so loads more than the ones that i have forgotten i expect. Some are touch sensors, some are speed/motion sensors (when flying) some are ears and surely many other functions .

Incedently they are not hairs like on mamals that grow from folicles, but bristles, having said that, fly ears grow using the same developmental parthway as the bristles in human ears. So even thoug hairs are analogous, bristles are homolgous, and even though there is no similarity between our ears and that of a fruit fly (ok there may be some unfortunate incividuals) the genetics and mechanics of them are homlogs . Weird eh?

tim

[Bruce Williams]

...and now I feel guilty even thinking about using a fly-swat .

Beautifully detailed, super-clean image and a helpful posting describing your set-up too.

Thanks.

Bruce

[snic320]

JUST PERFECT !!! the second capture is impossible to improve, perfect transitions, lovely tones....sharp details.......AMAZING !

[Charles Krebs]

snc320,

Thanks!
(Sometimes things just seem to fall into place the way you hope they will.... this was one of those shots.)

[shinchin]

Thanks for your illustration of the lighting setup. I think I will do something similar in the future. (I should join this forum earlier. )

Jack

[RogelioMoreno]

Charles,

I joined the forum around two years after this post and I missed it.
There is only one word: PERFECT!

Thank you for posting the setup.

Rogelio

[oxkarthemighty]

Wonderful, crisp, and very detailed as always! Great photos! I am so very jealous.

[FiyahhFitahh]

Brian,

Yep, the animal subjects in these deep stacks are almost always dead.

There are a few exceptions, like Charlie's "horsefly" in the old forum, and my recent "face of a hobo" and "orb weaving spider".

The problem is, it takes several minutes just to shoot the 30-100 frames required for these shots, and getting something like a fly to hold still for that long is pretty challenging!

There is some discussion of the ethics of this issue here, in the old forum.

--Rik

amazing pictures