Hoverfly doin' what a hoverfly do

crimbfighter · Jun 22, 2019

Conditions were calm today any my Spirea is blooming. That made for some great hoverfly action! Oh, and one ant that couldn't stay away from the camera...

All shot with my D500, Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro at f/10, 1/250 sec, ISO 100 with a 20mm extension tube. Custom dual flash rig.

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3. For those curious. The speedlights I'm using for these are Flashpoint manual zoom flashes. At a 1/128 +.3 setting for these shots, the flash duration was between 1/10,000 and 1/20,000 of a second. And there is still motion blur in the wings...

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Soocom1 · Jun 22, 2019

WOW!!!!!

Jeff15 · Jun 23, 2019

Very good set.............

Tropicalmemories · Jun 23, 2019

Yes - Wow!

Excellent images.

smoke665 · Jun 23, 2019

Great set! I just started playing with extension tubes recently. Interesting new Micro-world out there to explore.

zombiesniper · Jun 23, 2019

Excellent set.

Nominated for POTM.

tirediron · Jun 23, 2019

Really well done!

crimbfighter · Jun 23, 2019

Soocom1 said:
WOW!!!!!

Thank you!

Jeff15 said:
Very good set.............

Thanks!

Tropicalmemories said:
Yes - Wow!

Excellent images.

Thanks!

crimbfighter · Jun 23, 2019

smoke665 said:
Great set! I just started playing with extension tubes recently. Interesting new Micro-world out there to explore.

Thanks! I find that using my lens at or near its MFD makes for an impractical, thin DOF. By using even a small extension tube I can achieve a magnification closer to what the MFD provides (1:1), but actually be slightly farther away than the MFD which then increases my DOF to a more useable amount. It's also a better way to keep my aperture at the sharpest the lens has rather than stretching it to f/16 or something and losing sharpness to diffraction. Even sharp lenses and good focus can look OOF with too thin of a DOF.