A big fat fly

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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acerola
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A big fat fly

Post by acerola »

Fly is among the new stackers first subject, at least it was _my_ first subject. This is my first fly picture I'm more or less content with.
What is your opinion?

It was made with Canon 40D, Leitz 4.3 X objective, 85 frames aligned with CZP and stacked with TuFuse Pro

Image

I don't know the exact species. I'm relatively new in flies. Do any one of you have a trail what can it be?

Image
Péter

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Stack looks great to me Peter! It's a shame about the moire on the eye but there's not a lot you can do about that when resizing down, I'm sure it looks good at full size!

I like the composition, the specimen is posed nicely with the mouth extended, detail looks good and I can't see any obvious stacking problems.

The only minor issues I can see are - and these are minor issues, I like the shot! - are the OOF pin in the hairs at the top of the body (I only worked out what that was thanks to your other picture!) and maybe try to bounce a little more light up from underneath, the lower part of the fly looks a little dark on my screen...

Is it quite a large fly, around 1cm long body? If so I think it's what we over here would call a 'flesh fly', but if I remember correctly there are a lot of very similar species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh-fly

Planapo
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Post by Planapo »

Looks very good to me too, Péter!
Laurie mentioned already all that I could think of. You´ve used a stake of a needle to pin this fly down. A thinner, black one might have left a lesser trace. As to the light mainly from above, leaving a darker underside, that gives it a natural feeling as it does what sunlight from above would do. If that is intended, it´s fine, I think. The background colour you chose goes nicely with the red of the eye and the greys of the body.

I agree that it is a sarcophagid fly.

--Betty

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

I have no other comments about the stacking -- this looks very good indeed!

I am intrigued by the mouthparts of this fly. It appears in this picture that the palp originates in an extensible portion of the mouthparts. This differs from other pictures, such as http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=3637 , where the palp appears to originate from a rigid portion of the head. Is this apparent difference real, or is it only a matter of the viewpoint from which the picture was taken?

--Rik

acerola
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Post by acerola »

Thank you for the comments. Now I have ideas what to improve. Lighting is always on the list. :) Another kind of pin is a problem thought. Do you have a source of small black needle? :) And I need only a couple of dozen not thousands. This needle I use is the thinnest I can find at home. And it sometimes too thick, sometimes too long.

I don't know the answer to Rik question. The mouth part is strange for me too. Is that black tube like structure have to appear out from the dark pink part. Or it is just an injury? But It cant be an injury as the fly was live when I put it in the freezer. Or did I put an ant afterward in it too?
Péter

Planapo
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Post by Planapo »

Rik, In Charlie´s picture you linked it looks to me like the whole proboscis is not as fully extended as here in Péter´s fly and thus it seems the palp would originate elsewhere. In both cases it should be the maxillary palp originating from the extendable proboscis (and there from the remnant of the reduced maxilla).

Péter, If there isn´t a source in Hungary you could get insect pins/needles (in German: Insektennadeln) or minuten pins (in German: Minutiennadeln) in quantities of 100 from here, e. g.: http://www.bioform.de/shop.php?action=t ... &treeid=51
As you see Gr. (for Größe= size) 000 is the smallest insect pin, minuten pins are shorter and headless and can be smaller in diameter.

--Betty

acerola
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Post by acerola »

Thanks Betty,

It seems a good source. They have a minimum order of EUR 25. But I think it wont be a problem as they heave a lot of things. But I'm going to try to buy it in Hungary first.

Thats a really small one "Minutiennadeln Sphinx V2A 0,1x12mm" :)
Péter

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