# They are flies..



## ronlane (Jul 24, 2015)

but they aren't flying.

1) Horse fly.





mnpjuly-21-Edit.jpg by Ron Lane, on Flickr

2) Damsel fly.





mnpjuly-20-Edit.jpg by Ron Lane, on Flickr


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## baturn (Jul 24, 2015)

Nice!


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## ronlane (Jul 24, 2015)

Thanks Brian.


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## ShahanaPinky (Jul 27, 2015)

Awesome. Great shots !


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## beagle100 (Jul 27, 2015)

nice fly shot


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## PropilotBW (Jul 27, 2015)

Nice shots!  I hate those horse flies.  They're a pain!!


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## Overread (Jul 27, 2015)

What's the lighting you used for both these shots? They both look very  "hot" around any areas of white - might just be midday shooting and thus very strong ambient but I'm not 100% certain.


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## ronlane (Jul 27, 2015)

It was about 4:00 pm and the sun was the main light, but I did have my on camera flash up on these. I had it -1 stop flash exposure comp on most of my macro stuff.


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## Overread (Jul 28, 2015)

Hmm I wonder if even with -1 the flash is still overpowering the shot. You can see very clearly on the horse fly that large areas of its body are near pure white; and unless you added a vignette its showing very strong light in the centre and dark in the boarders.

You might want to try a few things:
1) Higher ISO and no flash
2) Use a diffuser to try and break the flash light up - something that simply blocks the light isn't enough, you need to increase the area - a sheet of paper or something similar held in front of the flash might work well if you can fix it into position (remember diffusion isn't about the "power" so much as it is about the area - the large the source area of light relative to the subject the softer the light will be). 
3) Manual flash power settings - might take a bit of fiddling around, but it should help if the flash is constantly picking too high a power point by default.


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## ronlane (Jul 28, 2015)

Overread, it could be. I use the FC at anywhere from -1 to -3 most of the time. I did not think that it would overpower the sun on this particular day, but I guess it did or enhanced it too much. (On the horse fly.)

On the damsel fly, that is the sun causing all of that. I don't think that the flash did anything to this shot other than help stop motion, well it may have helped with fill a little.

I agree that I need to get something to help diffuse the light when doing this type of work. I will search for something to help with that. (Maybe one of the Gary Fong diffusers)

I am still working on macro and for using 3 extension tubes on a 70-200mm f/4L, handheld and using on-camera flash, I have improved.

PS: There is a little bit of vignette added in LR.


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## astroNikon (Jul 30, 2015)

Neat shots
How close/far were you ?


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## ronlane (Jul 30, 2015)

Thanks Astro. I was about about 3-4 feet, I would guess. Both were taken with a 70-200mm f/4L with 3 extension tubes on it.


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