Portraits of some flies

Bald Eagle wrote:
You've been working side by side with Brian, Havent you? Fess up now and we wont torture you. You have truly captured some fantastic shots here. Very impressive. LOTF, most definitely.

LOL, Don't tell anyone BE, been flying over to the UK in the weekends and spying on how LOTF does it, [SIZE=2]all kidding aside, appericate all the kind words, thanks BE

Thanks everyone for the comments, apperciate all the feedback

yb98 wrote:
Please tell me what's your secret to take such incredible pics
Do you have a web page where you explain your technic ?
If no, please write one !

Thanks yb98, no i don't have a web page at the monment, right now i've got a bit happening and theres not that many hours in the day to do everything i want to do, but in a couple of weeks i will sort some out, but in brief heres what i do-
-Shoot in Raw ( do most of my colour adjustments before converting to jpeg, and don't sharpen any in raw)
- Camera settings are normally around ISO100-ISO200, F8-F13, 1/200sec-1/250sec, and use the canon 580ex flash, settings 0 to -1 with home made diffuser, here link for itwww.diyphotography.net​/homestudio/cheap-diy-flash-mounted-softbox
And take lots of shots with the same compo but with different settings and try new things out.
I veiw the histogram, and only use the lcd screen on the camera as a very rough guild, ( for example- you painted a wall, from a distance to looks perfect, but up close you can see the paint strokes, etc, and so with the wee lcd screen on the camera, the shot may look good but when you load it onto your computer you see the ture shot)
Heres a links which i found very usefulwww.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial​s/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml
- I take my shots hand held or with a bean pole, and with using the bean pole i've notice a very big improvement. (thanks Brian, great idea)
- with P and P i have not got a set way of doing anything, but i find that its better to adjust things just a fraction, than a lot, and i normally sharpen twice, a little bit first time and then to your likeing once you've done everything that you've wanted to.
And heres a link to Brian's tips, which i've learn't so much from
www.flickr.com/groups/​mimicry/discuss/66514/
Hope this helps a little, will put something a little better together in the next flew weeks when time allows, as i'm not a good one to put pen to paper (as they say)

Thanks for these tips and links.
Do you use a flash-bracket ? if yes how do you position your flash ? can you post a pic please ?
And finally can you post the camera jpeg of one of these shot so we can compare between the processed pic and the unprocessed pic ?
Thanks.

Hers a couple of pics of my set up, don't laugh to loud about my home made diffuser, keep pulling it apart and trying different paper, but it does the job. I adjust the flash so its on about 45dg angle where it is in the pics

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IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

And heres one of the pics, did not do any adjustment in raw, all i did was convert to jpeg, resize to same size and convert colour profile, the first one is unprocessed and the 2nd one be P and P, post them that size to view both at once.

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Thanks !

Amazing pics HF. The clarity and detail you're getting does definitely rival what Brian gets. Thanks also for the pics of your setup. I've added it to my post in the sticky at the top of this forum.

NO Comment
LOTF, definitely

Regards