Lighting Flies

[Ty Flyer 0]

What are your tips on lighting flies when you are photographing them. I am having problems with my flies looking too dark.

[flytire 0]

I use two full spectrum lights on each, 1 on each side/top and 1 below the vise

Incandescent bulbs are no really good

[mikechell 0]

Most of the photos you see with nice even lighting all around the fly ... are done with a "light box". Using a sheet, a piece of paper or some other light diffusing material, you surround the fly with this, then train a couple to a few lights on the outside of the material. Inside the light box, the light will be everywhere, evenly lighting the subject.

You can make a very cheap light box with a single piece of printer paper. Just tape it into a tube. Put your fly into the tube, shine a bright light on the paper and position the fly to take the best advantage of the light. You can position the camera so that the "dark" at the other end of the tube is directly behind the fly to really make it pop out at you.

I actually like taking my flies out into the sunlight and photographing them there.

[Crackaig 0]

I use the simplest set up I can. I'm a man I can just about do simple! The light is just my tying light.

The results...

You can put a background in if you like.

 

The problem though may not be the lighting set up you are using. Does your camera have a spot metering mode? If you look at the photo of flies above you will see it is mostly white. The meter in your camera is trying to make all the colours add up to 18% grey. That will result in under exposure of the fly if you are using a light background. If you can spot meter on the fly then do.

 

Many of us on here use DSLR cameras for fly photography. What these give us above all else is control. Many compact cameras will not give you so much control. You are then left with trying to fool the cameras pre set metering system into doing what you require.

 

Without knowing the specific camera you are using it is hard to help more. If your camera has a 2 stage shutter button, you can get a 18% grey card. Put this in front of your fly. Lock the exposure, 1/2 press the shutter realise, remove the grey card and shoot. If you can do this here is an 18% grey block, if you print it it may not be spot on, but it will give you a better approximation.

Hope that helps.

 

Cheers,

C.

[Chase Creek 0]

I use a homemade light box and two desk lights with daylight bulbs. Also use a tripod if you can, and a shutter release (or use the "delay" feature of your camera). Play around with different setups. That's the beauty of digital cameras - doesn't cost anything to take 10 or 100 exposures, you can experiment to your heart's content.

[André Ribeiro 0]

I used a mini box studio for long time, as Mike suggested. But even its small size is too large and unpractical.

I solved this problem and now I use a circular flash. It really produces good and clear shots, specially for macros.

This is one pic using this flash.

Big Hug

[kentuckytroutbum 0]

To add to what Andre said, the better ring lights have both a continuous and flash modes. That being said, I never use the flash mode. With the light on, I take my exposure reading, and shoot when I'm ready. With the flash mode, I found that I was getting a faint shadow behind the fly which I didn't want.

 

Bill

[SilverCreek 0]

Here's portable "quick and dirty" photography method I learned from Bruce Norikane.

Cut a hole in the side of a styrofoam cup for an electrical clip or a clip hackle plier as a fly holder.

Cut a hole in the base of the cup to fit around the lens (cup on the left) or just cut out the enter base of the cup (cup on the left). Put the cup and camera on a table and shine a frosted fluorescent light on the cup.

The styrofoam cup acts as a light tent to diffuse the light for even illumination. I cut a few more holes to let in more light which bounces off of the curved opposite inside surface for more illumination.

 

 

The photos below were taken using the macro zoom mode of my Panasonic Lumix waterproof camera. It has a Leica lens and can take amazing photos for a pocket camera.

 

If your camera has macro zoom ability, I suggest using it to frame the fly to your liking. I use a back or white craft foam for a background depending on the fly I am shooting.

I can take or even make a cup quickly to take photos of flies at fly tying events. I use the tiers own lamp and they are generally amazed at the photo quality. It is a wonderful way to capture a fly you want to tie later.

[FlaFly 0]

I see nobody has posted this: http://globalfyfisher.com/gallery/better-pictures-flies/

 

Good article with lots of good tips.

 

[flytire 0]

Here is my take on fly photography

 

http://flytyingnewandold.blogspot.ca/2011/01/my-take-on-fly-photography.html

 

my simple steup

 

[troutguy 0]

A translucent gallon milk jug makes an excellent light box too. Amazon has ring lights (LED) fairly inexpensive that work well.

[Ty Flyer 0]

Ok
So I've got the lighting problem solved, but I've also got two new problems. When I go to post pics of my flies, it will show the fly in the post composer thing, but when I hit post, it shows an error message. And my other problem is my pictures don't show enough detail.

EDIT: Got it working.

[troutguy 0]

To get more detail raise your f stop to increase depth of field. You should go from let say f 4.5 to f 16. The photo will require more light to accommodate the change.

[Kimo 0]

This is my take on photographing flies.

Kimo

[Piker20 0]

For those using ring led lights do you find the light is too spotty? I'm still looking at better (cheap) ways to light my flies as its just for forum sharing so not going to make or break a career. My current set up is a 3sided box, tinfoil on left and right side and changeable back plates. Bottom has a clip mounted to hold flies. I keep looking at the possibility of led strips along bottom sides and top edge but wonder if light not diffuse enough.