Some different flies

[RichieT]

Just a couple of macros with some different setups. The camera was a Nikon D300. The red background was with a 85mm 1.4 with extension tubes at F16. I felt the the DOF was lacking with this lens. The blue background was with a 105mm 2.8 macro at F28. I used a light tent with various combinations of lights. I used a velbon tripod with a velbon macro rail and pieced together some other parts to make a boom for a sb800 for fill light.

1

2

3

5

This last one is the setup I used for the blue photo.

 

[deeky]

Photographic technicalities aside, those photos will be the best thing you do for your tying. Study them.

Photography wise, a little more dof would be good on all of them. Leg tips on all of them are at least slightly out of focus.

 

[Low_Sky]

I think you did a better job with the lighting in the first two. The light looks too harsh on the second PT nymph.

Sent from my phone with my giant, uncoordinated sausage thumbs.

 

[RichieT]

Photographic technicalities aside, those photos will be the best thing you do for your tying. Study them.

Photography wise, a little more dof would be good on all of them. Leg tips on all of them are at least slightly out of focus.

It's already improving my tying in that, since the close-ups show every flaw (which my flies usually have enough of), I'm tying with an eye on getting some of them good enough to photograph. I was conflicted about posting the first couple since the DOF was so bad, but I was trying to illustrate the problem I had with the f16 max on the 85mm. Maybe the wrong context for that.

I think you did a better job with the lighting in the first two. The light looks too harsh on the second PT nymph.

Sent from my phone with my giant, uncoordinated sausage thumbs.

I agree that the light on the last one is harsher. My problem with the lighting on the first one is that the body was in shadow and lacked detail. On the last one, i took the r200's off of the lens and shot them thru the sides of the tent to soften the light but had the same lack of detail in the body. I then added the sb 800 on the boom for fill, but that led to horrible highlights on the hook eye and bend. I experimented with distance and angles to eliminate the highlights but keep the details in the body. Since I was going from very harsh backwards, I probably should have backed off a little more.

I appreciate the critiques since I am trying to improve. I already have some different ideas for the next time I set up. Probably use some bigger flies too, since the PT was a size 18 and a larger one might give more wiggle room.

Thanks for your inputs.