Small fly

[morgan]

One of my apprentices at work presented me with a very small fly and jokingly said "photograph this ****"
As the fly measured in at 2.5mm from nose to wing tip the young lad assumed it would not be possible to get a reasonable shot.

Following a lot of eye strain, and that was just setting the thing up , I managed to get these two photo's. (not the clearest but I am quite pleased considering my set-up is incomplete)

Not too happy with the lighting and I am finding it difficult to obtain the shadowless affect.

Nikkor 50 f2.8 reversed onto bellows, D200, ISO100, 26 stacked images @ f5.6


Nikkor 50 f2.8 reversed onto bellows, D200, ISO100, 26 stacked images @ f5.6

[rjlittlefield]

Morgan,

You have every reason to be pleased by these -- especially since 5 years ago it would have been close to impossible to get them at all.

From the pattern of highlights, it looks like you're probably using fairly "small" light sources -- meaning that they don't span a very wide angle as seen by the subject. Most people find that for this type of subject some sort of light tent works the best. The fanciest of these is "pingpong" lighting, where the subject sits inside half a pingpong ball that's illuminated by fiber optic bundles. But it can also work well to just drape a Kleenex tissue around the subject and lens, and shine lights on the tissue.

One aesthetic point... I personally find the large watermark over the image to be distracting. Don't know if others feel the same way, but I'd rather see copyright info tucked off in a corner where it doesn't get in the way.

BTW, I don't recall hearing what your "setup" looks like. I see that you're using D200 with probably an EL-Nikkor enlarging lens reversed on bellows. How about specimen holding, stack movement, and lighting?

--Rik