Flies on Choisya flowers

[GardenersHelper]

Captured hand-held last week in our garden with my FZ330 bridge camera with Raynox 150 and KX800 twin flash. Batch processed in DXO Optics Pro and Silkypix Developer Pro with image-specific adjustments in Lightroom. There are 1300 pixel high versions in this album and this album at Flickr.

#1

1162 09 2017_04_29 P1220425_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

1162 10 2017_04_29 P1220426_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

1162 11 2017_04_29 P1220428_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

1163 04 2017_04_30 P1220826_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

1163 05 2017_04_30 P1220830_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

1163 06 2017_04_30 P1220828_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

1163 07 2017_04_30 P1220835_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[Andy Johnson]

Wow, stunning. # 1 & 7 are my faves. Awesome clarity.

 

[Derek897]

Wow, stunning. # 1 & 7 are my faves. Awesome clarity.

Savage shots

 

[alfbranch]

Lovely work Nick

 

[coopers]

Very nice first 3 for me as the contrasty colours appeal #3 my pick.

 

[Deleted member 3428]

Nice set Nick.

 

[Tintin124]

Awesome set as ever Nick #7 is my favourite and best composition and angle

 

[Orangecroc]

This is incredible from a bridge! Any suggestions for a less expensive flash setup because my on camera flash leaves a shadow of the lens with used in many macro situations.

 

[GardenersHelper]

Wow, stunning. # 1 & 7 are my faves. Awesome clarity.

Savage shots

Lovely work Nick

Very nice first 3 for me as the contrasty colours appeal #3 my pick.

Nice set Nick.

Awesome set as ever Nick #7 is my favourite and best composition and angle

Thanks all for the kind comments. As always it is interesting to see what different aspects of images we variously give most weight to.

 

[GardenersHelper]

This is incredible from a bridge! Any suggestions for a less expensive flash setup because my on camera flash leaves a shadow of the lens with used in many macro situations.

Thanks Ben. For very effective use of on-camera flash have a look at the work of Mark Berkery, who is one of my macro heroes. Search for "velcro" on this page to see Mark's flash setup.

Your comment about a bridge is interesting. I use a bridge camera by preference for single-shot close-up/macro of invertebrates using flash. I have a dSLR (70D) and a micro four thirds camera (G80) and a good macro lens and extension tubes for each of them, but for this type of shot I find a bridge and close-up lenses works best for me.

An occasional exception to this is very small invertebrate subjects such as springtails, for which my G80 is my preferred tool, with powerful close-up lenses (most often Raynox 202 or Raynox 505). But I don't photograph very small subjects very often.

For flowers, for which I use natural light, for several years I found my 70D worked best, but I now use my recently acquired G80 in preference to the 70D. In both cases I found that they worked best for me with a telephoto zoom lens (55-250 for the 70D and 45-175 for the G80), with and without a mild close-up lens (Canon 500D, or occasionally a slightly more powerful Raynox 150), rather than using a macro lens.

The only role I currently have for a macro lens is for stacking, for which my preferred tool is my G80 with an Olympus 60mm macro, although I rarely do stacks at the moment.

My preferred camera for natural light shots of large invertebrates in strong light, such as butterflies and dragonflies, is my FZ200 bridge camera.

So for me a bridge camera is not in any sense second best - it is the best tool I have found for me to use for some sorts of subjects that I like to photograph. Horses for courses etc.