After getting a pretty nice image of a green bottle fly rather casually with moderate gear, I got curious about what
other ones I hadn't been paying attention to. The next day was not conducive to sitting out, waiting for them to come to
me, but I ventured out with TG-4 and teleconverter, 170 mm eq., to see what was out and about and try its focus stacking.
I did get what I consider a pleasing composition of a fly on a fern. And the stacking worked a treat for the fly and
foliage, giving much better DoF on the frond than any single shot, while the background is nicely soft.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20401>
OTOH, I couldn't get close enough to this small fly to get a good close-up, and going 100% with the tiny sensor,
mistakenly set at ISO 400, had little detail. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20405>
A few days later, I toted the E-M5 II, PLeica 100-400 and Nikon 5T C-U lens out with me as I sat in the sun. I fairly
easily got a better green bottle shot than before. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20427>
I tried some stacking, but the flies were quite active, so all the series did was nail focus/DoF one or two single
shots, as the above one.
The next day out, I found some of the smaller flies I had seen and shot with the TG-4. I discovered that they are
hoverers, as easily noticed from their shadows as directly, and hard to get the AF to find. I did get "closer" with the
longer lens. Closer to 1/4" than 3/8" in length, with similar wingspan, they are much smaller in bulk than the green
bottles.
This is a full frame of a shot of one.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20409>
A crop of the same shot. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20411>
And a head on shot at greater distance. Not as good detail and DoF, but I love the pose, and the way its perch is
isolated. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20413>
A couple of days later, a small fly found the skin of my knee fascinating, so I took it's picture. It was in constant,
rapid motion, and DoF is tiny at that distance/magnification, but I did get shots that should ID him, should I want to.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20415>
I did manage to get two shots without too much movement between them, giving a strange image of a creature in focus at
back and head, but
fading into softness in the far middle. :-)
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20417>
Then a green bottle sat still on a sprinkler head long enough for a focus stack. Terrific job on the foreground, but I
need different settings to get deep enough for the far wing. Still, rather nice.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20419>
Then, there's this thing. Big, hovers like a hummingbird/clearwing moth, the body hair is like some of them, but the
head, 'eyebrows' and mouth parts are wrong. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20421>
It did pose for a peekaboo shot.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20423>
Then flew right up and sat still briefly on a flower right in front of me.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20425>
The combination of PLeica @ 400 mm and 5T really is da bomb for live shootin'
of these little critters.
Flying Moose
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20417>
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|