While shooting some shots this weekend, I found two flies ‘getting to know’ each other. The following shots tell a little story. Please note that these images may be inappropriate for some maggots.
If anyone knows the species for these flies, I would appreciate an ID.
When I first started taking macro photographs, I thought for sure that all closeup shots of flies were fake. How could they get the fly to stay still for so long? After a number of failed experiments, I finally managed to get my first fly shot. After that, I slowly figured out the hard way how to get closeup pictures of flies, which I now do rather often. Once you learn how it’s done, it’s really not overly difficult.
![](<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirispupis/2914226102/" title="IMG_4112 by kirispupis, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3017/2914226102_3a2106008b_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="IMG_4112" /></a>)
I take most of my fly images with my MP-E 65. Once in awhile I use my 180L but I like the larger size of the fly that I can achieve with magnifications higher than 1x. Of course, this requires that I get even closer to the fly. When I use my 180L, it is much easier to get shots but I tend not to like them as much unless it happens to be a large fly. For lighting, I always use a MT-24EX. For the most part, taking high quality pictures of insects with only ambient light is not practical.
Most of us are very familiar with the hoverfly. Their flight patterns are very recognizable and have flustered generations of photographers attempting to get one in flight. As they stay in the same place for short periods of time, it is very tempting to try to get a picture of one in flight. This photographer was tempting by one over the weekend. Alas, the hoverfly one and I wound up with all of one out of focus picture that was quickly deleted. Still, I managed to get a few half way decent ones of the hoverfly landed.
![](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2514092246_bc40fcef1a_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="Hoverfly" /></a>)
I don’t like the white background at all in this shot, but I had to take what the fly provided. I tried photographing another two other hoverflies in more photogenic areas but none of the shots turned out. Note that whenever taking insects on a white background, make sure to dial up the MT-24EX a stop or two. Otherwise the picture will show up as too dark due to the metering in the camera. This picture is close to the brightness of the original, but previous shots I took were too dark.
After reading a bit though, I never knew how beneficial these flies truly are.
While most flies tend to be extremely annoying, they are a boon for us macro photographers. The reason is they are simply everywhere. It is not difficult to find a fly, and on some days when it seems I can’t find anything, there’s always a fly there to help. Of course, with some flies it can be tricky to get close enough to get a shot – especially when you go above 1x. This is even trickier when the fly is on a leaf and you need to make sure not to bump anything. For the majority of flies I try to photograph I never get a shot or if I get a shot then it’s not clear. Some flies only allow me to take a single shot – then they take off.
During a recent outing in the ponds next to my work, I found several flies and managed to successfully photography them. This is the first one I found.
