What's the best aperture size for photographing flies?

[Piker20 0]

Piker - I use cheapy tubes instead of spending all the kid's lunch money for a nice macro lens. Really like them, just the thing for photographing stationary things like flies. If you want to try bugs, put them (the bugs)in the freezer for a couple of hours - really slows them down and much easier to photograph.

 

 

But the bugs are the kids lunch.

[WYKnot 0]

Lots of good advice to your question on aperture. As noted, the depth of field is so critical when shooting macro, you need to be very precise when you focus. Try mounting a bare hook and taking a series of photographs, critically evaluate your images...are the hook eye and hook point both in focus? Aligning the camera sensor (film plane) paralelle to the hook shank takes practice and plenty of trial-and-error. If you search the archives of the Photography Corner, you can find a series of replies and comments, particularly from AL Beatty, that cover a number of tips and tricks for macro photography...to include apetures, DOF, and critical focus.

 

I common shoot flies at f/22-f/36, but experimented a lot before getting images print and web editors accepted. I use a Nikkor 60mm micro (Nikon's term for macro) when shooting for detail and use a homemade "fly studio" with a grid pattern on the surface to help consistenly achieve good alignment and a tubular cage to mount multiple lights. You may not need, or want, to get this obsessive, but it certainly helps get reproducilbe images.

 

Take lots of photographs and edit ruthlessly, the process of discovery is great fun!