My pet hoverfly

[LordV]

Seen what I suspect is the very same hoverfly a few times when the sun appears. ID'd as Scaeva selenitica. Taken with an MPE-65. Using a sugar/honey/spirullina spray as a feed attractant on to a camelia bush that gets winter sun and then using the hold leaf in left hand rest camera lens on that hand to take the shots.

Brian v



Crop from above shot

[homestar455]

These photos are simply amazing, Brian, I'll have to try the techniques you mentioned.

Thanks for sharing.

[Bruce Williams]

Some of the best hand-held shots I've seen Brian - truly excellent.

Your flash diffusing technique is really effective - was this the coke can or have you developed on from that? OOI, were you able to support your body in any way - lean against a tree or similar?

Bruce

[LordV]

Thanks for the comments

Bruce yes I was using my coke can diffuser. Not leaning on anything - just using the technique mentioned above of holding the twig/leaf near the insect and resting the lens on that hand.
Brian v.

[DQE]

Lord V,

I'm so envious of your ability to find some hovers at this time of year! It will be at least 3 months before my climate will permit such a thing! Hmmm...I wonder if it would be possible to raise pet hovers in a dedicated room of one's home? Thanks in no small part to your hover photos, I've really become emotionally attached to these creatures!
-----------

As a technical aside, I see a slight amount of Moire (aka aliasing) in the 2nd photo's eye. Would it be possible for you to estimate the size of this fly's ommitidium vs the size of your camera's pixels? I am guessing that the ommatidia in the upper right section, where I'm seeing a slight amount of Moire, was photographed so that the ommatidia are about the same size as the pixels in your camera's sensor, thus causing a slight amount of Moire.

You capture so much detail in your photos, I predict that the inevitable 40+ megapixel sensors that we'll see a few years will be put to good use in your macro photography. It would be technically interesting to compare the diffraction limited theoretical resolution of the MPE-65 lens at your f/stop vs the actually resolved details in these and perhaps other photos.

Thanks for posting such beautiful and enjoyable macro photos.

[rjlittlefield]

It would be technically interesting to compare the diffraction limited theoretical resolution of the MPE-65 lens at your f/stop vs the actually resolved details in these and perhaps other photos.

The EXIF data in these images is reporting that they were shot between f/8 and f/11. In this range, all high end macro lenses including the MP-E 65 will be very close to the diffraction limit. Significant differences occur for wide apertures. High end lenses often remain near the diffraction limit even at their widest apertures, while cheaper (simpler) lenses fall off at wide apertures and have to be stopped down for best results. Charlie Krebs' panel of test images indicates that the MP-E 65 is sharpest at or near wide open.

--Rik

[LordV]

Thanks again for the comments/info

DQE - if you can raise aphid covered flowers inside then I suspect it would be possible to raise hovers

Not certain re the Moire since that effect of picture size reduction (that is not a 100% crop) but this hover does have a very small "pixel" pitch. A quick calculation suggests there are approx 8 sensor pixels per ommitidium in #1

Rik is correct - these will be suffering from some diffraction softening - just the normal balance between sharpness and DOF you have to wrestle with esp with single shots.

Brian V.