Another Fly

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Sun May 28, 2017 4:04 pm

5X on SonyA7rII with Canon MP-E

click for full size...

100% crop of the cheek area...

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Mon May 29, 2017 3:55 am

That's nice and sharp. Is this flash or continuous lighting?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 29, 2017 8:21 am

Nice image!

In the full size, I notice some interesting "spiral hairs". They are located next to the bright highlight on the eye.

I don't recall having seen such things before.

--Rik

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 12:01 pm

Thanks, Chris!
This is flash-lit. I had a Nikon SB-800 and a Paul C. Buff ABR-800 optically slaved. I used a couple ping pong balls as diffusers, but unlike I've ever done before, I didn't put the specimen inside a ping pong ball, I just put them around it to block any direct light hitting the fly. It was also a surprisingly quick stack to capture as I had almost no settle time, just 2 sec between shots. No mirror lockup or any of the things I try to do to kill vibration with my Nikon and the Mitty 10x.

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 12:05 pm

Thanks Rik!
I noticed those too, when I was retouching.
I am not sure if they are natural or caused by a little fluid condensation during stilling, giving the fly a perm? Those hairs are a bit blurry, perhaps because my lighting still isn't diffused well enough...

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 29, 2017 3:10 pm

I'm guessing natural. As far as I know, those hairs are composed of chitin. Their shape is not easily altered.

The sharpness looks good to me. At 5X, you'll be getting a significant amount of diffraction blurring on that high-pixel-count full frame sensor. Exif data says f/3.2 for this image, which will be effective f/19.2 from the camera's standpoint.

--Rik

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 5:40 pm

That makes sense...
So, I should have used f2.8 to help the diffraction blur just a bit?

Ultima_Gaina · Post by **Ultima_Gaina** » Mon May 29, 2017 5:59 pm

Nice one! I like your colors. I reckon these beasts need a lot of careful retouching. Zerene can only do so much, and it is easy to overlook details in that forest of bristles.

You might want to do a little more retouching under the right compound eye, where I can spot a forgotten DMap artifact.

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 6:17 pm

Thanks, Ultima!

Good catch! I'm sure there are more I missed too! I did a few stack selected mini stacks to give me retouching source. Especially that bristly hair the goes right in front of the eye. Many artifacts of my retouching there for sure!

Lou Jost · Post by **Lou Jost** » Mon May 29, 2017 7:46 pm

Nevertheless, very nice work!!

royalwinchester · Post by **royalwinchester** » Mon May 29, 2017 7:48 pm

Thanks, Lou!

anvancy · Post by **anvancy** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:20 am

The details are phenomenal.

At times common subjects look mesmerizing under the lens.