One more try with a Hover Fly . Face to face

[JBW]

I went out with intentionality. This was shot on Shutter priority F/100, with my 18 - 55 kit lens. Worked on with Sony pro and Gimp. Scaled it way down to enhance the sharpness.

[rudi]

Another good looking 'alien' hoverfly.

One thing I might change, iff it were mine, is to tone down a bit the green patch in th upper right corner.

[JBW]

Another good looking 'alien' hoverfly.

One thing I might change, iff it were mine, is to tone down a bit the green patch in th upper right corner.

that could work too. I kept it to frame the fly

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately this one isn't a 'wow' for me.

Some things are better, but others less so.

If this were mine, I'd have positioned the fly more toward the lower left corner of the frame when cropping. You could trim a little off the left and lower edges even now.

I can't decide whether the distant green area is worth having, I'm thinking I might have tried removing it with PS CC's spot healing tool (a 'one click' task) and see if I liked the effect, if I did, then I if necessary, I'd re-do the healing, or revert to manual cloning, until I was happy with the result.

Sadly, best focus in this shot seems to be about the wing area and the amount of crop has left the eyes (in foreground) just a bit too soft for my liking. Even when you have a Macro lens and need less cropping, lack of Depth of Field is going to be a recurring problem I'm afraid - I mention this so as to set your expectations.

The surface it is on is better this time.

My apologies for being a miserable 'whatsit' this morning, Dave

[Shadowman]

Nice effort.

[JBW]

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately this one isn't a 'wow' for me.

Some things are better, but others less so.

If this were mine, I'd have positioned the fly more toward the lower left corner of the frame when cropping. You could trim a little off the left and lower edges even now.

I can't decide whether the distant green area is worth having, I'm thinking I might have tried removing it with PS CC's spot healing tool (a 'one click' task) and see if I liked the effect, if I did, then I if necessary, I'd re-do the healing, or revert to manual cloning, until I was happy with the result.

Sadly, best focus in this shot seems to be about the wing area and the amount of crop has left the eyes (in foreground) just a bit too soft for my liking. Even when you have a Macro lens and need less cropping, lack of Depth of Field is going to be a recurring problem I'm afraid - I mention this so as to set your expectations.

The surface it is on is better this time.

My apologies for being a miserable 'whatsit' this morning, Dave

apology accepted. I tend to agree it is better and not as good. I played around with the position for about an hour.

[RobFellows]

Hi Brian,

Firstly I assume that f/100 is actually 1/100th of a second.

The image is very soft, this is compounded by presumably a heavy crop, use of the kit lens and a slow shutter speed (for wildlife).

The composition is good and once your macro lens arrives (I remember you were looking to order one) you will be able to get up close sharp images of the smaller details.

[James G]

Hi Brian, thats quite a 'pretty' hover fly. Its still a bit early here for them, our temperatures are quite low still.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have scaled down to improve sharpness. I'm assuming that you have had to crop the source image pretty severely to get the current framing.

I think that some of the softness mentioned by Dave and Rob, could be reduced by careful application of a sharpening filter in post processing.

I know you are working at the limits of the current lens, and are very aware of the damage that 'upsizing' to compensate for the crop, can do to image quality, but there is a 'balance' that can be struck to help offset this.
Looking at the jpg you posted, I get the impression that there may be a little more to be brought out.

[Geoff F]

But is it really a hoverfly? The wing veins look wrong to me; so could it be one of the Soldier Flies instead?

[Dave Humphries]

But is it really a hoverfly? The wing veins look wrong to me; so could it be one of the Soldier Flies instead?

As it appears to have a rolled up proboscis, I assumed (in ignorance), that this differentiated it from a fly or wasp, but you know far more than I Geoff - in fact I only query it to learn more myself.

[Geoff F]

We can rule out any form of wasp/bee, Dave, because the antennae are completely wrong. They certainly point to a fly.

Most, probably all, hoverflies have quite a few long wing veins and some cross veins near the tip. There may be exceptions outside of Europe though.

I was thinking that this looks rather like our Oxycera species of Soldierflies, but the wing veins still aren't a good match so I can't place it with any accuracy.

[JBW]

But is it really a hoverfly? The wing veins look wrong to me; so could it be one of the Soldier Flies instead?

this is your fault Geoff for getting me interested in identifying what I shoot.

From what I have found out about soldier flies they do not have many or any spiky hair. they also feed on garbage? This fly has spiky hair and feeds on an orchid. Though not visible in this shot it also has the appropriate haltere

[JBW]

Hi Brian, thats quite a 'pretty' hover fly. Its still a bit early here for them, our temperatures are quite low still.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have scaled down to improve sharpness. I'm assuming that you have had to crop the source image pretty severely to get the current framing.

I think that some of the softness mentioned by Dave and Rob, could be reduced by careful application of a sharpening filter in post processing.

I know you are working at the limits of the current lens, and are very aware of the damage that 'upsizing' to compensate for the crop, can do to image quality, but there is a 'balance' that can be struck to help offset this.
Looking at the jpg you posted, I get the impression that there may be a little more to be brought out.

as soon as my camera battery charges I'll be charging out to try again.