A Fly

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Ya see, this is where I make my mistake Alby, I was happy snapping away at the small stuff until I come into a post like this and see what you chaps are capable of achieving! :LOL:

Amazingly detailed shots, superb (y)
 
A male, somewhere in the Muscoidea and I would guess an Anthomyiid, but cannot see any of the features you would need toreally tell. A bit too dark for my taste. I would have upped the ISO a bit and reduced the flash power so that I got a bit more exposure in the background.
 
Phil-D said:
Ya see, this is where I make my mistake Alby, I was happy snapping away at the small stuff until I come into a post like this and see what you chaps are capable of achieving! :LOL:

Amazingly detailed shots, superb (y)
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thanks Phil, glad you like;)
StuartUK said:
A male, somewhere in the Muscoidea and I would guess an Anthomyiid, but cannot see any of the features you would need toreally tell. A bit too dark for my taste. I would have upped the ISO a bit and reduced the flash power so that I got a bit more exposure in the background.
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Thanks for the ID Stuart and the advice, very much welcome. I like like my shots sharp and darker then most people,checking out my ipernity account will bear this out. Darker maybe not to everyone's taste but definately to mine. I do always shoot under so not to have pure white without detail in my shots as it is a real nono for me and easily done with the m4/3 system. These were taken under the shade of the big oak tree in my garden which is very dark so do resemble the conditions they were taken in.
Thanks for passing by. ;)
 
Nothing boring about those Alby, ace images with masses of detail
 
Nicely shot Alby
 
Very nice - I feel a tad under exposed, but sharp as a tack

Les :)
 
Here are a couple of shots taken in my garden yesterday to illustrate the point I was trying to make. These are of small Anthomyiids sitting on the edges of a metal wheelbarrow on the lawn. They were taken using a Canon EOS R with MPE-65 macro at F16 and set to 2:1 repro ratio, illuminated by a MT24EX twin flash (manual mode) using the bowl diffuser described in this blog post. The shutter speed was set to 1/200s - which is the max flash sync speed for this camera. The first shot, a female (possibly a small Muscid), was taken at 100 ISO with the flash power at 1/2:

Anthomyiid female garden 20200427.jpg

The ambient light exposure was about 6 stops below this (conditions where quite dull at the time! ), so the lawn in the background is completely black. This sort of shot with a black background can be very dramatic in the right circumatances, but on the whole the results are not terribly aesthetically pleasing!

The flash will go down to 1/64th power - i.e. 5 stops less light. If I dial down the flash power, I have to raise the ISO by 5 stops to compensate, so 3,200. This is higher than I am comfortable with (!), but for the sake of illustration, here is a shot of a male:

Anthomyiid male garden 20200427.jpg

This exposure is now only about 1 2/3 stops below the (rather dull!) ambient light level, so, whilst the exposure on the fly should be about the same, we get some daylight exposure from the lawn giving us colour in the background. Because the power is dialled right down, the duration of the flash will be VERY short (probably of the order of 1/30000s - I haven't managed to find duration figures for this flash) - so that should stop any movement by either the fly or me. Clearly, this shot is less sharp because of the noise caused by the high ISO, but to my mind the results are otherwise nicer because of the diffuse green background.
 
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StuartUK said:
Here are a couple of shots taken in my garden yesterday to illustrate the point I was trying to make. These are of small Anthomyiids sitting on the edges of a metal wheelbarrow on the lawn. They were taken using a Canon EOS R with MPE-65 macro at F16 and set to 2:1 repro ratio, illuminated by a MT24EX twin flash (manual mode) using the bowl diffuser described in this blog post. The shutter speed was set to 1/200s - which is the max flash sync speed for this camera. The first shot, a female, was taken at 100 ISO with the flash power at 1/2:

View attachment 276820

The ambient light exposure was about 6 stops below this (conditions where quite dull at the time! ), so the lawn in the background is completely black. This sort of shot with a black background can be very dramatic in the right circumatances, but on the whole the results are not terribly aesthetically pleasing!

The flash will go down to 1/64th power - i.e. 5 stops less light. If I dial down the flash power, I have to raise the ISO by 5 stops to compensate, so 3,200. This is higher than I am comfortable with (!), but for the sake of illustration, here is a shot of a male:

View attachment 276821

This exposure is now only about 1 2/3 stops below the (rather dull!) ambient light level, so, whilst the exposure on the fly should be about the same, we get some daylight exposure from the lawn giving us colour in the background. Because the power is dialled right down, the duration of the flash will be VERY short (probably of the order of 1/30000s - I haven't managed to find duration figures for this flash) - so that should stop any movement by either the fly or me. Clearly, this shot is less sharp because of the noise caused by the high ISO, but to my mind the results are otherwise nicer because of the diffuse green background.
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Yes Stuart I do understand exposure and flash balance with ambient light, I have done so much of that in film and digital in a proffessional capacity and hobby capacity since the early 70's. I do like my photos the way I take them. Making photos stand out from the background whatever colour it is, is my quest. My background in the above are not totally black on my Imac not that I have a problem with black backgrounds, If you really like a lighter background I can sort it for you. In your two shots I do much prefer your first shot to the second here but that is my opinion and I know you are only providing an example of ambient flash balancing. Some days I do thinks differently but generally by bag is sharp and detailed images on the darker side of normal like I said before. Thanks for your input, much appreciated. ;)
 
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That second image is outstanding! I happen to like the dark look because it adds atmosphere and drama. It's rich but subtle.

I also prefer something in the background rather than flat black which I see so often and which doesn't look like a real environment or habitat.
 
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RedRobin said:
That second image is outstanding! I happen to like the dark look because it adds atmosphere and drama. It's rich but subtle.

I also prefer something in the background rather than flat black which I see so often and which doesn't look like a real environment or habitat.
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Thanks for passing by Robin ;)
cruso said:
Top work Alby
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Thanks Kevin, much appreciated. ;)
davekiddle said:
Good stuff as usual Alby :)
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Cheers Dave, you're keeping safe I trust ;)
 
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