Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

FM Forum Rules
Macro World Resource
  

FM Forums | Macro & Still Life | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2015 · Moth Fly Revisited

  
 
e6filmuser
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Moth Fly Revisited


I tried to get flies in a more photographable situation than was the case with my previous attempt. One fly, to my surprise, settled on the rim of the compost bin, and stayed there for many minutes. This overcame the rocking and rotating of the upturned lid in the previous shoot. The ideal viewpoints remained just out of reach, due to large and heavy obstructions i.e. adjacent compost bins, but access was much improved.

This time I kept the aperture constant.

EM-1. 200mm extension, Schneider Repro-Claron 55mm (not reversed) f16, RC single flash with kit diffuser and foil snood. Camera hand-held with some support from a long cane. ISO 800, aperture priority. FOV 5mm wide. WD ca 60mm.

Each frame cropped by ca 50%.

I believe that the results can be improved on but the difficulty of framing these insects at all means that I will not return to them in the near future but will seek other subjects. I am content that the lens does much what I expected of it. I have yet to determine how to get the best out of it e.g. magnification and aperture.

Harold





© Harold Gough 2015





© Harold Gough 2015



Edited on Mar 02, 2015 at 02:35 AM · View previous versions



Mar 02, 2015 at 02:28 AM
LordV
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Moth Fly Revisited


Good ones Harold but still seem to be lacking in detail. Assuming F16 is set on the lens I'd try taking it down to at least F8.
Brian v.



Mar 02, 2015 at 02:34 AM
e6filmuser
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Moth Fly Revisited


LordV wrote:
Good ones Harold but still seem to be lacking in detail. Assuming F16 is set on the lens I'd try taking it down to at least F8.
Brian v.


Thanks, Brian.

I'm going to have to do some comparisons on some more coopertive subjects.

I chose the lens because it has apertures from f8 to f32 and is designed to perform well at the smaller apertures. It is possible that diffraction at such a magnification is going to be no respecter of lenses! Even at f11 I was struggling to get worthwhile DOF with these flies.

Using ISO 800 means having to remove a lot of noise, even from RAW files, and that must affect detail to some extent. So more light and ISO 400 would be a first step but the circumstances with these insects make that difficult. I am going to have to wait until the weather warms up a bit.

Harold



Mar 02, 2015 at 02:50 AM
e6filmuser
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Moth Fly Revisited


I have teased some more detail out of the second image.

Essentially, I need to get a view where the near wing, through to the eyes, is parallel to the plane of the sensor, something which I tried for but physical constraints prevented. With that, f11 or even f8 might do the job.

Harold



© Harold Gough 2015




Mar 02, 2015 at 06:47 AM
e6filmuser
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Moth Fly Revisited


LordV wrote:
Good ones Harold but still seem to be lacking in detail. Assuming F16 is set on the lens I'd try taking it down to at least F8.
Brian v.


I've done some static, bench tests on inanimate objects. My conclusions are that, at this magnification, f11 may just be the optimum aperture although I cannot really see any clear difference at f16. There is some deterioration at f22 and f32 is dreadful. Also, the tiny DOF at f8 makes this aperture useless other than for copying and suchlike, and, presumably, for stacking.

Harold



Mar 03, 2015 at 06:18 AM
e6filmuser
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Moth Fly Revisited


e6filmuser wrote:
I've done some static, bench tests on inanimate objects. My conclusions are that, at this magnification, f11 may just be the optimum aperture although I cannot really see any clear difference at f16. There is some deterioration at f22 and f32 is dreadful. Also, the tiny DOF at f8 makes this aperture useless other than for copying and suchlike, and, presumably, for stacking.

Harold


I took some further (flash) shots today, this time of the fine petal details of an orchid. As the subject was rather three-dimensional and focus planes difficult to replicate, I took three shots of the same area at each of the apertures f11, f16 and f22. I chose the best image of each for comparison.

The results were similar to the previous ones but with, perhaps, a tiny bit more resolution at f11 than at f16. Although, at this magnification, I would chose f11 as default, I would be happy to go half a stop smaller, a full stop if DOF was a priority.

Harold



Mar 04, 2015 at 09:09 AM





FM Forums | Macro & Still Life | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.