Some Hooverflies :)

Hoverfly shots from Yesterday- all on on near a yellow bottlebrush.
Brian V.

Episyrphus balteatus #1

Episyrphus balteatus #2

Drone fly

Syritta pipiens

Episyrphus balteatus #3 in flight uncropped

fantastic shots brian..............
the inflight one is just superb....

Lovely, lovely, lovely shots. The first few were outstanding, and they just kept getting better the further down I scrolled. My jaw dropped when I saw the last picture, that is simply...awesome, one of the very best in flight shots I've seen in a long while. A few questions Brian - #1 and #2 look like you relied on natural light, am I correct? And how many shots did it take to nail that last image?

Dave

Thanks Alan - Had a good day yesterday- this bottlebrush really attracts the insects- hoverflies, bees,flies and butterflies all over it yesterday.
Brian V.

Thanks Dave,
No, all the shots were with flash, but the camera settings (F11,1/200th, ISO200) mean the flash only acts as fill in good light that we had yesterday.
I ended up with 2/10 shots where the focus was pretty good with that hoverfly- first time I've tried shooting at 1:1 with the MPE-65 with a bug in flight. Obviously the hover was being very cooperative and predictable in it's approach behaviour- these hovers fly up to the flower several times and taste it with their feet- looks like they are kicking it when you see them doing this.
Brian V.

Thanks for that info Brian. The first 2 shots really do look like natural light to my eyes. You've obviously got the right amount of flash and diffusion right.

As to the hoverflies, 2/10 is a damn good ratio for something as hard as that. I tried a week ago getting shots of Bees and ended up forgetting about it. I am looking forward to Spring, cos we have a Japanese Maple tree out the back that the Bees absolutely go for every single Spring and there's going to be a tonne of opportunities to grab fantastic in flight shots I suspect.

Dave

Excellent series. Love the detail of the eyes . The last inflight shot is just fantastic

Lovely shots, the quality of the light is wonderfull.

Wish you luck in Spring with the bees- I find them much harder than hovers for in flight shots as they are so unpredictable.
Brian V.

Leorooster wrote:
Excellent series. Love the detail of the eyes . The last inflight shot is just fantastic

Thanks Leorooster
Must admit I didn't think it would work for the in-flight shot at 1:1 but the hoverfly was very cooperative
Brian V.

Thanks Lester
Not quite up to Melvyn's shots from the light point of view but think they do look better when they don't have totally black background.
Brian V.

Hiya Brian,
Excellent shots love em all but that in flight one caught my eye, go back & have a look at its face, looks human (poor thing) even down to the flip up glasses!!!
Well the wife thought she was going to Plymouth today, ha, shes had that I'm off to the Garden Centre to get me some 'Bottle Brush' plants, keep em comin.
Cheers for now
Mark

Thanks Mark
Not sure if you are serious, but if you can find some bottlebrush plants in the garden centre they will probably be red coloured (not yet blooming though) under Callistemon .
Brian V.

I think that I'll take Bees anyday Brian, hoverflies just won't come within cooee of me. Saw one today, it was about 12 foot up in the air at the local Banksia tree. No way of getting near it. It came down to head height for a few seconds, I waited, approached slowly and didn't block the sunlight, and made no sudden movements, it took off as soon as I got within 3 foot of it. Bleh, horrid little things lol.

Dave