Picture covers a 7mm square. Stack of 88 images taken with 5x Mitutoyo M Plan APO on a Raynox DCR-250 tube lens (125mm focal length). Combined using Zerene DMap retouched with PMax.
A once annoying fly...
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
A once annoying fly...
A fly that made the mistake of annoying me while I was driving. I happened to have a sample jar in my pocket too
Picture covers a 7mm square. Stack of 88 images taken with 5x Mitutoyo M Plan APO on a Raynox DCR-250 tube lens (125mm focal length). Combined using Zerene DMap retouched with PMax.
Picture covers a 7mm square. Stack of 88 images taken with 5x Mitutoyo M Plan APO on a Raynox DCR-250 tube lens (125mm focal length). Combined using Zerene DMap retouched with PMax.
I love the color of the wings and legs. A very nice image!
When I take images to show wing color a black background works well. When I wish to show leg features (hair, spines etc) I use white or light colored backgrounds, usually green as I have a green strip of felt that I swap with a black one. I have not found a universal color for backgrounds.
Keith
When I take images to show wing color a black background works well. When I wish to show leg features (hair, spines etc) I use white or light colored backgrounds, usually green as I have a green strip of felt that I swap with a black one. I have not found a universal color for backgrounds.
Keith
Thanks for the comments folks.
Yeah - I know, no feet, but I was tuning/testing the new Raynox setup (3x minimum with a 5x Mitty) and didn't want to switch to the MP-E 65mm just to make the feet fit in this time. Could have gone portrait orientation, but that involves turning the specimen around on my rig. I currently have no way to mount the camera on its side - and I didn't mount the fly in a way that made it easy to rotate it that way either.
Excuses, excuses
The wings did seem a little more iridescent than the norm. They actually have some nice markings and pigmentation too (visible about two thirds of the way along the front edge of the wing) but the iridescence masked that. Murphy's law!ChrisR wrote:Great wings - were they especially colourful?
(I've noticed, you have a thing about feet......)
Yeah - I know, no feet, but I was tuning/testing the new Raynox setup (3x minimum with a 5x Mitty) and didn't want to switch to the MP-E 65mm just to make the feet fit in this time. Could have gone portrait orientation, but that involves turning the specimen around on my rig. I currently have no way to mount the camera on its side - and I didn't mount the fly in a way that made it easy to rotate it that way either.
Excuses, excuses
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Smokedaddy
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Wow, excellent image. So you were able to mask (so to speak) in Zerene to define the hairs? I've never successfully used the touch up feature, couldn't figure it out (just being honest). <g> Was the black background accomplished in PS or did you use flocking material or something like that for your background?
-JW:
-JW:
Not a lot of work done on this one. The background was a piece of flocked card angled downwards to reduce the light falling on it. I only retouched the area behind the bright yellow thingy (haltere?) as this got a halo round it in dmap - and a few edges where PMax had done a better job with the background. The background was further darkened using levels, then a bit of selective burning of shadows to remove the last few bits of background haze. The hairs are all as shot/stacked. Once completed, I added a bit of "punch" with clarity and vibrance to enhance colour and contrast. I arguably went a bit heavy-handed with that, but I like the final look.Smokedaddy wrote:Wow, excellent image. So you were able to mask (so to speak) in Zerene to define the hairs? I've never successfully used the touch up feature, couldn't figure it out (just being honest). <g> Was the black background accomplished in PS or did you use flocking material or something like that for your background?
-JW:
Edit: Here's a stack done 24 hours later with a 20x Mitty. Just a touch of levels adjustment in post, no other tinkering (should give you a better idea of the amount of post-process "enhancement" done on the first one). I see the haltere has shrivelled up already, the eye is starting to degrade (brown lenses appearing at the top) and a few more dust specks appeared. Just shows that it pays to photograph specimens ASAP after capture and mounting.
Very nice.