[Barry Robertson]

Is there a colour thats best suited for backgrounds for taking pics of flies or do you think certain flies look better with certain colours 
Just trying to improve my camera skills with flies so any opinions gratefully appreciated 
Ultimate pingu! 


Note the difference the background makes, sheets of card 18p each from craft shops!






After seeing peters last photos with his classy wallpaper i think the purple looks really good as a background 

[Dave Mundie]

do you think certain flies look better with certain colours 

Why didn't you use the same fly with the different colour'd card to see if it make a difference 

Just a thought


Dave

[Iain Goolager]

Bandy,

good topic which might just lead to a section on camerawork & SBS studios.

Background is important as is the tripod for shots including hand work stills.

My issue is with the camera. I've been working with two cameras that are, how can I put it? .....s***e BUT some of the pictures are ace and I'm so frustrated. I'm working with macros, lighting, flash settings, timers, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!

It's the only thing that's holding me back from posting more SBS's.

Anyone got any tips - apart from buy a decent camera.

I'm using a Canon digital Ixus 50 & a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-170

Iain

[Mike Barrio]

I usually find macro close up work difficult too

I think we possibly get too close to the object, I can often get better results by taking them from further back and then cropping the photo around the subject?

Might be worth trying.
Cheers
Mike

[Mike Barrio]

Great post by the way Baz

[Rob Brownfield]

I used to lecture at Aberdeen College and one of the subjects was Photography (part of the multimedia curriculum). Part of that course was "product" photography, in other words, close ups of things like plates of food for resturants, individual components for catalogues etc.

The main thing with macro photography is to use a good quality dedicated macro lense and a programmable "ring" flash. The typical length of lense  for things like insects would be a 150-200mm lense..so that should be perfect for flies.

Basically the flash is like a "donut" and fits around the lense. When taking an image from say 6 inchs, the ring flash gives a really nice, even light with no harsh shaddows. Being programmable you can "turn down" the amount of light it gives off to get better contrast.

Using filters on the lense also improves images, BUT, if using digital photography, save the image in RAW format, take into something like Photoshop, and you can apply the same settings as a traditional glass filter would give you.

Remember filters do not "add" to an image, they take away..so if your image looks a little yellow (typical when using standard indoor lighting) apply a purple/blue filter, and it will remove the yellowness. (Do a google on colour wheel and you will see what colours cancel each other out)

However, a "Bridge camera", ie, your typical point and shoot compact digital camera can be used for macro use, and has an advantage that because it has a short lense, your Depth of Field is greater meaning that the image is sharper near and far.

At the end of the day, you can spend thousands on kit, but if displaying on a computer screen the maximum resolution you will ever get is 72dpi on a Mac and 96 dpi on a PC, so your average £100-£200 compact digital with macro lense feature and a copy of photoshop will allow you to produce good images for display on forums etc. If you want stuff for print, then look at DSLRs

Oh..on that subject...when saving images for a forum/the web, just save as 96dpi...anything higher wont make a blind bit of difference.

[Irvine Ross]

After deleting a lot of poor photos I discovered that :

The background needs to be matt finish otherwise it reflects the light back into the lens. I just used a card folder from the office. A white background is no good as it upsets the exposure settings.

The background needs to be at least a foot behind the fly otherwise the camera focuses on the background and not on the fly.

I had to switch off flash as the camera measures the light bouncing back off the background and over exposes the fly. I just used an ordinary standard lamp with a reflector bulb.

As Mike says, trying to get too close was no good as my camera can focus better if the fly is about a foot away from the lens, even on macro setting. If you use a high quality setting there is plenty of detail left after you crop the picture down to half its original size.

On my camera it works better if I zoom in by about a third of the range so it is not on wide angle. Mine is a Panasonic Lumix TZ4 compact.

A tripod or something else to clamp the camera on to is essential. Hand held is just not steady enough.

Hope this helps

Irvine

[Barry Robertson]

Iam using a Panasonic FS62 Lumix and find taking pictures in a pitch black room and using the flash produes good results on certain flies