Hoverfly tightrope

[ciceron]

Hello,

Here's one of my first macro, a hoverfly. In the nature reserve of Mercantour southeastern France.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Gabriel,

That's pretty good; those things don't stay still for long in my experience.

I wonder if it wouldn't brighten up a little though, the whole image might look better half a stop more 'exposed' (in PP I mean).

Well done,

[Geoff F]

A good interesting shot from an ideal angle.

Like Dave, I think you could get away with a little touch of extra brightness; although beware of creating some 'hotspots'. I would be tempted to do this on a layer with a mask to avoid any localised overexposure.

Normally, I like to shoot this type of scene slightly underexposed to prevent any accidental overexposed areas then do some final slight compensation during editing.

In the south, you get quite a few hoverflies which are absent from the UK so I'm not totally sure about the identification, but it does look somewhat like a female Daysyrphus tricinctus; or a close relative.

ps. A little word of warning; macro photography soon becomes addictive - and expensive. And then there are all those identification books plus . . .

[Dave Humphries]

And then there are all those identification books

I buy mine from the hospice and other charity shops, currently have more on birds than bugs though
Keeps the cost down and does good in other places.

[Geoff F]

Yes I always check out any secondhand books, Dave, but although bird books, and some mammals, are relatively common; good entomology reading material is hard to discover; and then it is usually excessively priced.

Surprisingly, many of the classic identification books were produced around 70 to 100 years ago and have never been bettered.

[revi]

(...)

Surprisingly, many of the classic identification books were produced around 70 to 100 years ago and have never been bettered.

And they often have very nice drawings, too.
Just be aware that the official names may well have changed (sometimes a lot), which can make further searches difficult.
This might not be too much of a problem for English speakers, but common names translate very poorly, if at all.

Remco

[PopsPhotos]

I shot various hover flies last Summer. My catnip bed was very popular with them. I accumulated over 150 shots before I got one of the little critters sitting still. That shot was the one chosen for display this month at the Art Center.

You shot is very nice, as you have a lot more color than my catnip beds offer.

Pops

[Geoff F]

At the risk of going a little off topic; we were talking about finding secondhand wildlife books.

Well, I saw on the UK wildlife site that I use, another member had decided to sell his book on Soldierflies (one of the classic ID books although 10 years old) and had just put it on Amazon. So I jumped straight in and acquired it for £20 which I think is a good price.

It won't make me an overnight expert, but these flies often confuse me so it will help to obtain better identification.