My first robber fly

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

At least, I'm pretty sure it's a robber fly. My knowledge of flies is still very limited. This critter was snoozing on a small blackberry leaf when I found it, covered in water droplets. All of these shots are focus stacked from anywhere between 9 and 20 shots. C&C welcome!

1.

2.

3.

A while later, it was on a piece of grass and had dried off some.

4.

5.

EDIT: Oops, forgot there was one more!

6.

jaymitch · May 21, 2012

Very nice! What did you shoot these with?

dxqcanada · May 21, 2012

Nice shots.
Was this with the Tamron 90mm macro ?

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

jaymitch said:
Very nice! What did you shoot these with?

dxqcanada said:
Nice shots.
Was this with the Tamron 90mm macro ?

Thanks jaymitch, dsqcanada.

All shots were taken with my Sony 18-55mm kit lens reversed. On-camera flash with a DIY diffuser.

dxqcanada · May 21, 2012

Jeeze, I think that lens has better IQ in reverse !!!!

leeroix · May 21, 2012

awesome. how do you focus stack?

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

dxqcanada said:
Jeeze, I think that lens has better IQ in reverse !!!!

Yeah. :lmao: I've been going back and forth between the 18-55 and the 18-70. Both are great reversed, but the 18-55 wins when it comes to CA, which it handles really nicely. However, images don't really contain any extra detail at over 50%. So shots are effectively 6MP.

sm4him · May 21, 2012

Awesome; love that first shot with the water drops!

LizardKing · May 21, 2012

Excellent shots! And with a kit lens! Congratulations!
What do you mean by 'reversed' if you don't mind me asking?

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

leeroix said:
awesome. how do you focus stack?

Thanks. Here's the page that got me started with stacking:
Wonderful Photos: How to Increase your Depth of Field by Focus Stacking
Basically, it amounts to moving your camera slowly towards your subject without changing the focus on your lens, and keeping your field of view as consistent as you can. You get a series of shots that are focused on slightly different points on your subject which you can then take into a program like Zerene Stacker or CombineZM to put them all together.

I almost always shoot handheld, so having something solid to brace against is a huge plus while you're moving forward. There are gizmos like macro focusing rails that can help make sure you don't move around too much though.

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

sm4him said:
Awesome; love that first shot with the water drops!

Thanks.

dxqcanada · May 21, 2012

It is a mounting adapter ... one side for your camera mount ... the other side a screw mount.
This means you can attach your lens in reverse using the filter screws on the front of the lens.
Reverse Mounting Your Prime Lenses for Affordable Macro Photography

It was a cheap/easy way of doing macro in the old days ... usually with the 50mm standard lens.

kyrontf · May 21, 2012

LizardKing said:
Excellent shots! And with a kit lens! Congratulations!
What do you mean by 'reversed' if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks. Reversing a lens just means that you mount the lens onto the camera by its filter threads so that it is pointing in reverse. You need a reverse adapter for your camera that has filter threads matching your lens. Any standard lens becomes a macro when you do it, and kit zooms give you a lot of flexibility with magnification!