Wasps and flies on Fatsia flowers

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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We had some sunshine today and although it was a bit chilly despite the sunshine some flies and wasps came out to feed on a Fatsia bush. There were only a few of them and they were hyperactive, rushing around between a large number of flowers spread around the 2 metre diameter bush, so I had very little time to reach, frame and capture each scene. These images were captured using autofocus with a 12 megapixel, 1/2.3" sensor Panasonic FZ330 bridge camera with a Raynox 150 close-up lens and a Venus Optics KX800 twin flash. All used f/45 full frame equivalent aperture.

The raw files were batch processed in DXO PhotoLab and Silkypix, with image-specific adjustments in Lightroom including a round trip to Topaz DeNoise AI. There are 1300 pixel high versions of these images in this album at Flickr.

#1

1568 01 P1660525_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

1568 02 P1660532_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

1568 05 P1660538_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

1568 08 P1660542_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

1568 11 P1660581_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

1568 14 P1660590_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

1568 15 P1660599_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

1568 23 P1660663_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
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A great set as always Nick (y)

Nothing but rain here the last couple of days and its still at it now :(
 
Are you in one of the areas affected by flooding?
Only surface water here, in good old Milton Keynes - on - mud nothing serious (y)
The Ouse has burst its banks, ( as usual with this amount of rain), but where that happens is a designated flood plain.
 
Excellent set, Nick. Really like the last fly one.

The Fatsias are great at this time of year and it seems even a little sun on them brings out the insects.

Dave
 
Excellent set, Nick. Really like the last fly one.

Thank you Dave.

The Fatsias are great at this time of year and it seems even a little sun on them brings out the insects.

Dave

Yes, I noticed they were there again today. No photos today though - I was busy with the autumn tidy-up when I noticed them, and only a little while later when the sun had moved around off of the bush they had all gone. Tried some flowers and shrivelled berries instead.
 
Fantastic detail,

Thanks James.

amazed at the depth of field you achieve

I like to get as much depth of field as I can, and to do this:
  • I use very small apertures
  • I use autofocus, and I use a very small autofocus area to position the centre of focus exactly where I want it, part way back on the subject, to try to avoid unused depth of field in front of the subject
  • I often crop
  • I sharpen a lot
  • I capture lots of images and throw out most of them, which for various reasons are not as good as the ones you get to see or, very often, are simply unusable. Only a small proportion work out nicely (and almost all of those have features I don't like).
The very small apertures cause a significant loss of sharpness/fine detail because of diffraction. My post processing helps to improve the impression of sharpness, but I can't retrieve fine detail that has been lost. However, I keep the final images smallish (1300 pixels high) and so some of the fine detail that is lost is fine detail that you wouldn't see unless you looked closer than the size I create, so you don't miss it because you can't look close enough. Also, it seems that the larger front to back range of not so fine detail that I get with a bigger depth of field gives an impression of a lot of detail overall even though there is less fine detail in the areas closest to the plane of focus than would be the case with a larger aperture.

BTW, cropping in itself doesn't increase depth of field, but if you use less magnification and then crop to get the framing you want you get greater depth of field than if you had captured the image with greater magnification using the same aperture and used it uncropped. (I discussed that in this post in my "Journey thread" and the following two posts.) Of course, as with small apertures, you lose sharpness/fine detail when you crop; you also get more noise when you crop. There is no free lunch.
 
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