Fly #01 (Macro Attempt)

[Rebel]

I was doing some work in the garden just now and spotted a couple of these flies, I'm assuming they are flies.

Fairplay to this one he kept very still and even waited while I went in the house to grab my camera.

I have no idea how the PP works on these shots so I've just cropped and sharpened it.

[Geoff F]

Looks OK, Matt. One of those common flies which actually turn out to be very difficult to fully identify unless you have really clear shots from several angles.

When it comes to sharpening, I usually just sharpen the main subject not the background. Either with a layer and mask or a simple 'cheat' alternative which usually works OK. Draw a selection around the subject, but you don't need to be exact as long as you are slightly outside of the required area. Feather the selection by at least 10 pixels so the variation in sharpening isn't apparent. Then sharpen normally.

Sometimes I then Invert the selection and apply extra noise reduction to give a clean background. You can increase the amount a bit and reduce the detail sharpness because it is all to your advantage if you get a bit of softness in the background.

[Rebel]

Cheers Geoff, thanks for sharing that sharpening tip.

I would of liked to get the far leg and front of the leaf in focus to, but it was hard enough getting this as there was a slight breeze!

Its ALOT harder than it appears, but I do enjoy chasing the bugs around as a bit of variation from all the Landscape stuff. I just have to get there before one of my cats do!

[Chri5]

I like it Matt. It might not be completely in focus which is of course typical of the macro lens but you have got the head and eyes in great sharpness. If you are going to go down the route of close ups then you should look up some tuts on exposure stacking where you slightly change the focus on each shot so as to get the desired sharpness from front to back. A tripod a must though.

[Rebel]

I like it Matt. It might not be completely in focus which is of course typical of the macro lens but you have got the head and eyes in great sharpness. If you are going to go down the route of close ups then you should look up some tuts on exposure stacking where you slightly change the focus on each shot so as to get the desired sharpness from front to back. A tripod a must though.

Cheers Chris.

I won't be going down the macro route, I'm thinking of selling the lens to partially fund that Sigma you recommended

[deetheturk]

Well captured Matt, sharp where it needs to be

[bnnrcn]

Successful attempt Matt