Neal Osborn
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Dear Fishnbanjo (SLG),
It is always a pleasure to see you post here. I have been away for some time and just saw this post. Good to see you stretching your wings with fly photography. How many curse words have you said since you got that new lens, LOL. Macro fly photography is certainly challenging, but knowing a few fundamental “rules” can greatly increase your odds of getting keeper shots. The comments above are all very good and I won’t add to that line directly. However, I can provide a few tips and tricks to get better diffused front fill on your flies. And it’s all about front fill!!!
The main problem in your shots is the lack of front lighting. I’ll explain below.
Feel free to review my post on this subject here http://flyartstudio.com/wordpress/?p=187. This particular post deals with the fundamentals of getting a good basic fly shot, but the latter part has a few tricks for reflector fill.
1. Are you using on-camera or off-camera flash? What is your camera body and flash brand?
2. Ditch the copper bowl. Metal throws a harsh light and the copper is creating a slight tint to your shot which competes with your white balance. Instead, use cloth or even toilet paper to diffuse your flash.
3. Front fill can be accomplished in many ways, but the simplest method is to bounce the light from an Ott light or tying light using a white card made from cardboard and covered with cheap drawer lining sticky paper. This is covered in more detail in the link above.
4. You can then “add” bounce light to the front using a silver or white cake pan liner.
The final image will look something like this. Not bad for one Ott light and two home-made reflectors.
The same technique of refection can be added to back-lit fly shots taken in natural sunlight. This technique will trick the camera and provide good front fill.
5. Capturing glossy flies is very difficult, but you can often get a fairly good result by diffusing your flash with toilet paper.
6. Avoid shooting “at night” in your house. Instead, wake up early and stage your flies next to a window, preferably a north facing window and simply let Mother Nature give you the front light. Then just diffuse the light with a white shirt or bed sheet or buy a $8 mini diffuser at your local camera store. One of the biggest problems with fly tiers is the tendency to shoot at night after the family is asleep. In that situation, you only have flash and ambient light to get the shot.
Here is an example of a staged fly shot next to a window early in the morning with great natural lighting and no flash.
7. Shoot in the garden or even a small flower pot. Some of my best macro photography is done in my backyard with minimal flash, typically early in the morning.
Example
8. The “sweet spot” on your lens will typically be somewhere in the middle of the focal range. Worry less about this and more about positioning the lens to get the best range of sharpness throughout the fly. In other words, shoot the fly at a 90 degree angle instead of tangential and you will avoid the depth of field issues inherent to macro photography.
9. Go buy a $5 black tile/slate from Home Depot. Simply lay the fly on the slate and move the background far away, like 8 feet. Focus on the fly and direct the flash at the fly. Use a shutter speed like around 1 second. Then laugh out loud at the cool artsy shots you can get. Remember, this technique works best with “black” or dark images because it is way easier to get a black background vs a white or colored background. Also, computer software is helpful to burn (i.e. dodge-and-burn tool) the dark areas, but that is a topic for another time.
Example
10. Finally, remember that the hardest fly shot to master is the simple “white” product shot. You need lots of directional flash in order to capture the fly fibers while avoiding clipping the highlights in the white background. Therefore, I always recommend people start with black backgrounds first and then move to darker colors like purple/brown/blue before trying to do the fashion high key white stuff. Trust me, you will feel better about your results early on and build confidence.
Example. If you look closely at the black eyes in this shot you will count a total of 10 flash units, including two soft boxes and a ring flash.
So what is the easiest, fastest, best way to get good fly photographs without learning all the fundamentals ::)A RING FLASH!
John, I agree that the CAF/Filter is a bit erratic and I see it more as an adjunct tool for landscape/fishing photography.
Tim – it was great meeting you and sorry we were both too busy to fish together. Next time for sure.
Steve – That is a school of glass minnows in the first shot. All the flats pictures were taken with a 24-70 lens while standing on a skiff. The city shots were taken from my hotel window on a tripod, LOL.
I have received additional PM questions about the photographic technique used above so once I find some time I’ll post a tutorial on how the process works.
Mark, I get asked that same question often because of the unique stylistic look. I process most of my images through Lightroom (3.0 currently v.2) and then post-process in Photoshop using old school tonemapping techniques. It is the same process used for medical blood-and-gut shots, so it is tailored for high structure and detail and works great on the water. I am not a fan of HDR at all and often advocate against it. That is just personal opinion and it’s a debate for another time. IMHO the real treasure involves knowing how to pull information from a RAW image versus letting the software automate the process. A good B+H circular polarizer is also a critical piece of equipment for these shots.
Viveza 2.0 by Nik Software is also a software I use a lot and it can be purchased as a plugin for Lightroom or Aperture.
Tim – thanks for your kind words. As you know the flats ate a real challenge to shoot. However, the cloud cover gave great diffused light.
Mike – LMAO!
VENICE, Louisiana — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is closing commercial and recreational fishing from Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In a news release sent Sunday afternoon, NOAA said the closure begins immediately and will last for at least 10 days.
Looks like I won’t be able to get “one last chance” to fish the great Reds here.
I’m in New Orleans currently and through next week. I am scheduled to fish Wednesday but it is looking grim. I’ll keep everyone posted.
I had dinner with a few reporters from a national outlet tonight. They had just returned from Venice and so far the reports are just speculative. We will see how this pans out.
Tim Angeli, looks like you won’t be missing anything after all :-X Give me a call when you get into town.
I am one of those nocturnal critters that loves the dark side anyway
LMAO, you finally admitted it in public Ben.
