Full Fly In Focus

[skeet3t 0]

Current angler, it seems to work great. Even the curly Q bulbs were showing glare. The bonnets soften the light and cut glare on the vise or anything that would reflect light. A book I have that was written for me, Digital Photography for Dummies, mentioned softening the light. I shot a series of photos showing the stages of tying a fly that has been around for over 100 years. Article was in On The Fly South.

 

[Poopdeck 0]

You will need a tri-pod. Also use the timer where you press the button and then it clicks off a few seconds before taking the picture. This will eliminate the shake from pressing the button. 

When you jack up the f-stop (higher number) the aperture opening gets smaller. The smaller the aperture the less light that gets in so the longer the shutter has to stay open to get the correct amount of exposure. You can add more light but it will always come down to a slower shutter speed. The slower shutter speed is why you need the tri-pod and should use the timer on the button to eliminate blurr from movement during the slow shutter speed. 

[The Mad Duck 0]

Leave the camera in AV mode. Use a higher F-stop ..f11,f16 or f22. Make sure you are shooting off something steady and make sure you have sufficient light. The higher the aperture number (fstop), the less light enters the camera. The lower the f-stop #, more light is allowed in.

Assuming you have sufficient light,an f-stop setting of f11,f16 or f22 should give you better depth of field. 

 

Just remember fstop number is the aperture setting on the lens

HIgh number f11 and up achieves a deeper depth of field

Lower numbers like f2.8 or f4 achieves a shallower depth of field.

This article explains it fairly simply

https://digital-photography-school.com/understanding-depth-field-beginners/

[DWSmith 0]

These work too.  It's a table top tripod.

 

[cphubert 0]

I struggle with photography, my pictures used to be shaky out of focus and poorly lite. Someone advertised on the forum a light ring setup for fly pictures a few years ago but I have a hard time giving credit card info online. While in Walmart ($20 pre pandemic) I saw a light ring and made a plywood stand with adjustable focus positions for a dowel fly holder. Had fun making the stand now my pictures are clearer and probably overexposed, someday I'll learn how to use the camera....

[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 photo below is 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.

 

 

[salmobytes 0]

Somehow I missed this thread, even though it's a favorite subject.

You might lose some fine detail at F32 but for a single exposure that provides the (single shot) greatest depth of field.

F22 might be a better compromise. Both would require lots of light.

 

Another take is focus stacking.

If you use a tripod you can carefully sightly twist the focus ring between multiple exposures, and then use software (like ZereneStacker) that sorts through each exposure and chooses the sharpest pixel at each location.

 

Or you can use software and a usb cable to electronically twist the focus ring (Entangle on Linux....Helicon Focus on Mac/Windowze)

 

Or you can buy a stepper motor camera base that sits on top of a tripod, that moves a fixed-focus camera forward many times, taking a new exposure at each step..................................and then use ZereneStacker to transform 10, 50 or 100 exposures into one image.

 

Can get cheap but good strobes at Alien Bees.

Can make a light tent with a curtain and clear vinyl tuibing (for a frame)

White-balanced "tensor study" iights inside the light tent provide some counter-balancing directional light)

1/8" white plexy glass can be bent to an L-shaped frame, so slave flashes can be popped from below and behind (to make a bright background)

Blue plastic sheeting can be taped onto the back side of the plexy glass to make a sky blue background. PlexyGlass makes shney reflections that ruin the background as is. But you can gently rub the plexyglass with polishing compound and a rag to make a non-reflective, not-shiny surface.

 

 

Black fabric can be used to make a jet black background

No matter what you do you'll want to work on post processing skills--expensive from Adobe, free from Gimp , Darktable and Ansel. Entangle. ImageMagic etc.

 

Many tell you to use the lowest possible ISO (hence lots of artificial light) but I often use 800 or more.

F8 makes a sharper macro image than F32

 

phnotomacography is a great online resource. 

Good people. Good information.

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/

 

 

[salmobytes 0]

 .....from the light tent, with maybe 30 exposures, white PlexyGlass background with blue acetate taped to the back of the plastic, with slave flash behind the light tent, shining on the background. Slave flash from below too. Two AlienBees strobes shining on the light tent.

 

[salmobytes 0]

My home-rolled light tent.  You can buy them or $100 bucks or so. Or cobble one together with scraps.

[salmobytes 0]

A few more fly pics, all done with stacking

https://montana-riverboats.com/?robopage=Flies/Sandy-Pittendrigh
 

[salmobytes 0]

Focus Stacking multiple images

 

 I have one of these:

https://cognisys-inc.com/focus-stacking/stackshot-pkgs/stackshot-macro-rail-package.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwkeqkBhAnEiwA5U-uM18ceXBD_RrBoEo6PJVtCppYCzsgEkDeAVDOIASPNQhtM8AWV2mROhoCqh4QAvD_BwE

Learning how to use it, and all the peripheral software that goes with super-macro focus stacking is a big lift. But it's also a fun hobby.

 

Any tripod and dslr with macro lens, light tent and umbrella strobes (like Alien Bees)

Cognisys -- computer controlled focusing rail, with it's own software

Entangle  -- tethering software

ZereneStacker -- focus stacking software -- this is the only software I use that is not free.  It is very good.

Darktable or Ansel for editing raw images, and for conversion from raw to tiff

Gimp, for final touch-up and conversion from tiff  to jpeg

 

A Cognisys rail is expensive. You can buy manual thumb-screw rails for less.

You cannot do it all without the camera on a tripod.

You can make focus stacks without any focusing rail at all, by manually, carefully, twisting the focus ring on the lens.

 

You cannot do focus stacking at all without focus stacking software of some kind.

 

[Hilario 0]

you can buy a stepper motor camera base that sits on top of a tripod, that moves a fixed-focus camera forward many times, taking a new exposure at each step..................................and then use ZereneStacker to transform 10, 50 or 100 exposures into one image.

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Steppermotor has a rich product series, and each motor has its own unique advantages and characteristics, which can meet the needs of different customers and different applications.