Eye to eye with a thousand eyes of a Robber fly (unique for my shooting)

[JBW]

ISO 100 ~ Shutter Speed 0.8s ~ F/14 ~ Natural Light ~ Sony Alpha a58 ~ Tamron 90mm 272E

[AlwaysOnAuto]

You've gotten quite good at these macro shots Brian.
Nice one here.

[DanK]

Quite a spectacular capture. Was the fly dead? Also, this is way more than the 1:1 your Tamron will do. Did you use a bellows or tubes? Crop a lot?

[JBW]

You've gotten quite good at these macro shots Brian.
Nice one here.

Thanks Alan, I've become intentional about finding the limits of my camera lens combo. This shot isn't even 1x1 mag. Which means there is still room for improvement.
B.

[JBW]

Quite a spectacular capture. Was the fly dead? Also, this is way more than the 1:1 your Tamron will do. Did you use a bellows or tubes? Crop a lot?

Much more spectacular than I had hoped for when I took the shot

Nope the robber fly was and hopefully still is alive. Shot out of doors in natural light. If I'm reading my lens correctly it was shot at 1x1.1 which means that I still have room for improvement.

As for cropping: I ended up with a 1400px x 900px shot. But I neither upscaled nor downscaled the shot.

The Sony Alpha a58 / Tamron 90mm 272E match up is really quite good for all types of shooting. FGrom macro to wide field astrophotography.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Stagecoach]

Another great one Brian.

[JBW]

Nicely done.

I had been hoping for a head on shot opportunity.

[JBW]

Another great one Brian.

Thanks Grahame. False modesty aside I feel like I have moved onto a new level in both shooting and post processing. And as this shot was taken at 1x1.1 there is still room for improvement on all levels.

[DanK]

Amazing that you got that shot while the beast was still alive and kicking.

As for cropping: I ended up with a 1400px x 900px shot. But I neither upscaled nor downscaled the shot.

I'm not sure what you mean by "upscale." In one sense, you did upscale it. You cropped to 1400 horizontally. Your sensor is 5456 x 3648. Thus, you cropped the image to roughly 1/4 of its original size (linear dimensions, not area). This magnifies the image fourfold relative to the size of the frame. Therefore, in terms of how big the bug looks relative to the frame, if you shot at 1:1.1, this looks the same as if you had shot at four times, that, 3.6:1, and had not cropped. The difference is that your image contains 1.26 megapixels, while an uncropped photo shot with a lens that can do 3.6:1 would have the full 20.1 megapixels of your sensor.

I shoot bugs a lot of the time with an extension tube that gets me a maximum of roughly 1.5:1, and I usually fail even at that distance. I am in awe of people who take photos of live bugs at much higher resolutions than that.

What you didn't do is what is often called uprezzing--where the software interpolates to create more pixels than you originally had. If you wanted to print your image at a size greater than 5.7 inches across on a printer like mine--3.9 inches on an
Espson--the software would uprez. For display on most computer monitors, your 1.26 MP is more than adequate, so the loss of detail from cropping isn't apparent.

[JBW]

Amazing that you got that shot while the beast was still alive and kicking.



I'm not sure what you mean by "upscale." In one sense, you did upscale it. You cropped to 1400 horizontally. Your sensor is 5456 x 3648. Thus, you cropped the image to roughly 1/4 of its original size (linear dimensions, not area). This magnifies the image fourfold relative to the size of the frame. Therefore, in terms of how big the bug looks relative to the frame, if you shot at 1:1.1, this looks the same as if you had shot at four times, that, 3.6:1, and had not cropped. The difference is that your image contains 1.26 megapixels, while an uncropped photo shot with a lens that can do 3.6:1 would have the full 20.1 megapixels of your sensor.

I shoot bugs a lot of the time with an extension tube that gets me a maximum of roughly 1.5:1, and I usually fail even at that distance. I am in awe of people who take photos of live bugs at much higher resolutions than that.

What you didn't do is what is often called uprezzing--where the software interpolates to create more pixels than you originally had. If you wanted to print your image at a size greater than 5.7 inches across on a printer like mine--3.9 inches on an
Espson--the software would uprez. For display on most computer monitors, your 1.26 MP is more than adequate, so the loss of detail from cropping isn't apparent.

A nice distinction I was unaware of; uprezzing versus upscaling. It seems to me that a camera with less but larger pixels would come in handy for macro?

[DanK]

A nice distinction I was unaware of; uprezzing versus upscaling. It seems to me that a camera with less but larger pixels would come in handy for macro?

The reverse, I think. There was a detailed discussion thread about that recently. There are some advantages to a larger sensor with less pixel density and hence with larger pixels. However, that wouldn't help with the issue you face, which is having fewer pixels on the subject. Remember that the size of the image on the sensor given by a given macro lens at a given distance is exactly the same regardless of the size of the sensor. There are only two ways to get more pixels in the image you posted. One is to use higher magnification to start with--in the case of your image above, shooting at 3:1 or 4:1. That's very difficult, and it requires more than your lens and tubes. The other alternative would be a sensor with even higher pixel density than your camera has.

If you used a sensor with lower pixel density, the problem would just be worse.

[JBW]

The reverse, I think. There was a detailed discussion thread about that recently. There are some advantages to a larger sensor with less pixel density and hence with larger pixels. However, that wouldn't help with the issue you face, which is having fewer pixels on the subject. Remember that the size of the image on the sensor given by a given macro lens at a given distance is exactly the same regardless of the size of the sensor. There are only two ways to get more pixels in the image you posted. One is to use higher magnification to start with--in the case of your image above, shooting at 3:1 or 4:1. That's very difficult, and it requires more than your lens and tubes. The other alternative would be a sensor with even higher pixel density than your camera has.

If you used a sensor with lower pixel density, the problem would just be worse.

worse I don't need.

[Dave Humphries]

Amazing Brian

[JBW]

Amazing Brian

Dave, I have to agree. It seems that my post processing skills and my understanding of how to use my equipment have moved to a new level. Either that or I'm on an amazing lucky streak.

[Wavelength]

Superb

[JBW]

Superb

thank-you.