More green bottle flies, eating dinner

[DanK]

Right after reading Geoff's comments about the difficulties of photographing bottle flies, I sat down to dinner outside and was joined by a bunch of them. After we were done with dinner, I stopped shooing them away and let them eat our leftovers while I ran to get a camera and flash. Here are two shots of flies drinking from our salad bowl. I used a highly diffused flash held at the front of the lens (a stofen, extra diffusing plastic inside, and two layers of paper towel on the outside. Despite some dodging, you can clearly see the problematic reflections Geoff referred to. Still, they are photogenic critters.

C&C welcome, as always

[IzzieK]

I wish Grahame will respond to this post too...he knows a lot about shiny stuffs on beetles which he taught me...I love the macro shot of these everything is just so sharp. Jack will be proud of me here if I mentioned about the psuedotraceae...I googled it because I was interested in what this guy is using to demolish your salad plate.

[ajohnw]

I tried a blue bottle with flash and no diffuser as I feel that as the light still comes from one direction other than reducing intensity it wont achieve anything if the flash produces an even light all on it's own. This is the result. Not really that much worse than results using just sun light but worse than cloudy day situations.

This is SOC apart from sharpening, cropping and size reduction.



Where the reflection angles direct light straight back at the camera ................. A diffuser might get rid of the rather small bright white spots but it wouldn't surprise me if some were still there.

John
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[IzzieK]

Something is wrong with your lighting I think...did you try different angles of your light like in a studio setting where you can configure your lights? Even leaves got this shine the same area as the wings, but it is beautiful as it is right now...is it a dead fly? Just curious...

[ajohnw]

Something is wrong with your lighting I think...did you try different angles of your light like in a studio setting where you can configure your lights? Even leaves got this shine the same area as the wings, but it is beautiful as it is right now...is it a dead fly? Just curious...

No very much alive and basking in the sun. The shine is there because the angles are correct to bounce the light straight back at the camera. The really hot spots might be caused by the flash gun - I will be fitting a diffuser but suspect they will still be there. The answer really is a soft box type approach. Some do use these but dead insects are needed. Many people do that via a microscope and use 1/2 a ping pong ball as a soft box. A camera lens would need something a lot bigger.

John
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[Shadowman]

Right after reading Geoff's comments about the difficulties of photographing bottle flies, I sat down to dinner outside and was joined by a bunch of them. After we were done with dinner, I stopped shooing them away and let them eat our leftovers while I ran to get a camera and flash. Here are two shots of flies drinking from our salad bowl. I used a highly diffused flash held at the front of the lens (a stofen, extra diffusing plastic inside, and two layers of paper towel on the outside. Despite some dodging, you can clearly see the problematic reflections Geoff referred to. Still, they are photogenic critters.

C&C welcome, as always

Dan,

Have you tried bouncing the flash off a nearby subject or lowering the intensity?

[ajohnw]

Here is the same type of fly but taken in strong sunlight. I wonder if the answer really is to under expose as the dynamic range needed isn't that high at all in many situations but none linear brightness adjustments would be needed.



This one was taken in far more subdued and diffuse sunlight which needed an exposure of 1/25 sec please excuse my slight hand shake but 1/25 sec using 300mm on m 4/3 plus an achro close up lens is asking a bit much hand held.



I feel the reflections are a problem and often diffusers are being used because of the short distances involved and the power of the flash guns used. They all do have minimum power levels which generally get bigger as the guns get more powerful. The Olympus "once was clip on one" I used has ridiculously low power available even flat out.

True ring lights might help as they give very flat lighting but I suspect these will have the same problems as well. The other problem is that there are few real ring lights available. Many just use 2 small tubes.

John
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[DanK]

John (Shadowman),

I didn't try bouncing. that's a good idea, but it would take a lot of agility, since the main problem is tracking the flies quickly enough to bring them into focus. I think I did try reducing power, but that didn't matter.

The majority of good macro photographers (much better than me) I follow use a single diffused flash held near the lens. I think the problem with mine might be small size. I took these shots with this rig:



Most people use larger diffusers, like this one, used by one of the best macro photographers I have seen on the web. (If you want to see his work, go to http://www.dgrin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23 and look for "goldenorfe"). Brian Valentine, who is at this point world renowned, also posts there frequently, under the name "Lord V".) I built one like that recently (the "coke can" diffuser built from two sliced up soda cans):



but it is flimsy, and I am not satisfied with the diffusion, so I have to rebuild it.

The small diffuser seems to work fine with less reflective bugs, e.g.:



Dan

[DanK]

True ring lights might help as they give very flat lighting but I suspect these will have the same problems as well. The other problem is that there are few real ring lights available. Many just use 2 small tubes.

I know a few macro photographers who use ring lights, but most of the ones I follow don't use them precisely because they do produce such flat lighting. The Canon two-head flash is intriguing because you can vary the intensity for the two heads separately, but they are tiny heads very close to the front of the lens, which may make proper diffusing difficult.

[ajsmith]

Who knew they were so pretty. Very sharp and colorful. Have you ever tried using parchment paper? You can find it in the baking isle of a grocery store. It's the paper you use to line baking pans. It is a translucent white color, sort of like white wax paper. It can be used with lamps too and no danger of catching fire.

[ajohnw]

I know a few macro photographers who use ring lights, but most of the ones I follow don't use them precisely because they do produce such flat lighting. The Canon two-head flash is intriguing because you can vary the intensity for the two heads separately, but they are tiny heads very close to the front of the lens, which may make proper diffusing difficult.

This is what I used. The aerial is for a "flash bracket" and I really should get some black velcro. II used it on the 60mm macro lens I'm pretty sure it would over expose at 1:1 as the working distance is so short so I would have to add a diffuser to cut down the light. With the lens shown it looks like I could do with more power at times. Olympus spies please note the design is copyrighted aJohnw. I sometime think Olympus are a bit silly. I suspect a gun of around twice this power with a small manual zoom arrangement could be driven in the same way. They'd rather people paid rather a lot for larger but still somewhat under powered guns instead.




Odd colour balance and looks like I should give it a dust.

John
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[DanK]

Who knew they were so pretty. Very sharp and colorful. Have you ever tried using parchment paper? You can find it in the baking isle of a grocery store. It's the paper you use to line baking pans. It is a translucent white color, sort of like white wax paper. It can be used with lamps too and no danger of catching fire.

Yes, it works well. I now use baking parchment paper as a diffuser over ambient lights when I do flower macros indoors. My coke can diffuser currently has two sheets of parchment, but I haven't tested it to compare it to other types of diffusers with a flash.

[IzzieK]

Will this work?
https://www.spinlight360.com/shop/sp...t-360-extreme/

[DanK]

Will this work?
https://www.spinlight360.com/shop/sp...t-360-extreme/

Izzie,

It would be a waste of money.

Ideally, you want three things: diffusion, a larger light, and light held next to the lens. If you are going to make do with only the first, you can simply buy a Sto-fen (perhaps $15), wrap aluminum foil around the side to avoid light going out to the side, cover the front with two sheets of paper towel, and hold it together with a rubber band. That will give you good diffusion.

The hard part is holding the flash near the front of the lens. Mine is a do-it-yourself rig made out of a straight aluminum flash bracket (I think I paid $7), from which I removed the cold shoe, and two mini ballheads. A lot of people use things like this. Last time I looked, good manufactured brackets that can serve this function were expensive, but I haven't looked in a while. To make it larger, you have to buy or make something that will hold the diffusing surface a distance from the flash, like the examples above. For one (the one I made), just google: coke can macro diffuser. You just have to be careful not to cut yourself as you cut the can into strips and shape it.

[IzzieK]

Dan, as I am not a DIY sort of person, this is what I thought might be of help. If I ask my husband to do it for me, it will take weeks for him to do it and when he does finally get to it, I have run out of steam. So $149 is not big money to me if I can use it. And I do use this one.

[nimitzbenedicto]

This is what I used. ...................... Olympus spies please note the design is copyrighted aJohnw. I sometime think Olympus are a bit silly. I suspect a gun of around twice this power with a small manual zoom arrangement could be driven in the same way. They'd rather people paid rather a lot for larger but still somewhat under powered guns instead.




Odd colour balance and looks like I should give it a dust.

John
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Hi John, Just curious if you used Fotoxx or some other photo editor in Linux .
Thanks

[Loose Canon]

I see now why they call these things bottle flies!

Looks to me like they would be like shooting a tiny opaque glass bottle!