Fly on a berry

[F1RacerRR]

Had a macro day on Sunday, loving my Nikon 105mm macro VRII.
Got a ring flash for it and the results were much better than i had before.

I took quite a few but heres one of the good ones I took of a fly who refused to stop feeding on this berry no matter how close i got. Perfect model

Large image so.. http://racingrenders.com/FeedingFly.jpg

erm.. the noise surrounding the fly is because of the way I sharpened the image. Any tips on how to avoid this stuff is appreciated.
Pretty sure I used Unsharp mask.

 

[Overread]

when using unsharpen mask I tend to use the following settings:
Amount - depends
Radius - 0.8
Threshold - 4 (this is a tricky slider but essentially tries to lower the amount of sharpening on noise).

The other option is to use layers and layer masks so that sharpening is applied only to select areas of the shot that you want sharpened; whilst leaving other areas untouched (such as backgrounds). The same can also be used with noise reduction methods so that noise is reduced only where you want it to be and it leaves sharper areas of the shot alone.

Also for presentation on the net I advise you learn to resize the shots - resizing down to say 800pixels on the longest side is a good size for embedding photos into a forum. You can then also leave a link (like you have done here) to a larger version. This not only encourages people to look at your work but also lets them see the whole photo - whilst fullsized unless they have a massive screen they can't see the "whole" photo you captured.

 

[F1RacerRR]

Thanks for the sharpening tips. I`ll experiment with that. Layers seems a nice method.

Of course I know how to resize But I showed it fullsize as I preferred people to see it at the size I shot it. But yeah it would be better to show a smaller version with a link to a full size.

How do you post it so your photo has that yellow bar on top that says 'This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image.' ?

 

[Overread]

That bar is automatically added to any photo larger than 800pixels on its longest side that is embedded into the site. However anyone on a slower connection will hate you for posting fullsized pics into threads like that (as the whole photo has to load up before it gets resized).
Furthermore the resizing is done without sharpening so you'll end up with a softer looking shot.

 

[F1RacerRR]

ok great. I`ll be kinder to those on slower connections next time