2 flies and a beetle

The beetle is the Soldier Beetle Rhagonycha fulva, known affectionately as the Hogweed Bonking Beetle 'cause they are very often seen is mating pairs on Hogweed flowers. The two flies are both Muscids and will be difficult to identify specifically since the key relies heavily on details of the bristles on the thorax and legs, which aren't all visible. At a guess, the top one is a male Helina or Phaonia and the bottom one is a female headfly - but I certainly wouldn't be very sure! Personally, I would say that if you are going to go in this close, you need a smaller aperture for more depth of field - or multiple shots and stack them. The beetle particularly is a "optical section" with too little in focus for my tastes. Interestingly, if I go to your Flikr post and look at the EXIF info, it tells me you took them using a Pentax K-1 with a 180mm lens, 1/200s at ISO-400, but it doesn't include the aperture used!
 
StuartUK said:
The beetle is the Soldier Beetle Rhagonycha fulva, known affectionately as the Hogweed Bonking Beetle 'cause they are very often seen is mating pairs on Hogweed flowers. The two flies are both Muscids and will be difficult to identify specifically since the key relies heavily on details of the bristles on the thorax and legs, which aren't all visible. At a guess, the top one is a male Helina or Phaonia and the bottom one is a female headfly - but I certainly wouldn't be very sure! Personally, I would say that if you are going to go in this close, you need a smaller aperture for more depth of field - or multiple shots and stack them. The beetle particularly is a "optical section" with too little in focus for my tastes. Interestingly, if I go to your Flikr post and look at the EXIF info, it tells me you took them using a Pentax K-1 with a 180mm lens, 1/200s at ISO-400, but it doesn't include the aperture used!
Click to expand...

Cheers Stuart, these are all at f8, as are most of my macros, the reason no aperture value is there is because of the bellows, it doesn't pass any info, the lens is a sigma 105mm macro, but because of the bellows, I have to input a value for the focal length for the SR and just put in 180mm and it seems to work, haven't tried any other lengths, maybe i should. It also doesn't register the flash, but it is used.
F8 is where the light is best for my eyes, if i step down much more then the flash power has to step up, and then the light starts getting harsh and unpleasant, I have tried focus stacking in photoshop, but when shooting handheld in ditches and bushes between the wind and myself moving they have just never worked out, and I have tried using a tripod but that hasnt worked at all for ditch and bushes.
On the soldier beetle, I couldnt get a better angle as there was another leaf just to the right that stopped me getting a side on view, had to be from above.
Fair play to you on your ID's of these, I genuinely had no idea on the flies, there are just so many different types and sizes, its boggling.
I am still learning and looking to improve so any thoughts and advice is greatly appreciated.
(y)(y)(y)

:pentax:
 
As always you show very impressive shots here showing super detail and colour.
Thanks
 
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