[shawnw315]

I got a question. I tried to take a couple of pics of flys that I tied and had no success. First I have a good quality digital camera, and thought it might be the camera so I borrowed another camera and discovered I still had the same problem.

The problem: when I zoom in the fly in the vise for a good detailed closeup it gets blurry. I can take a clear pic of it but its too far away to show detail. How in the heck do you guys get them excellent quality pics of flys? Do you resize the pic? Whats the secret?

[Christensen]

See www.flyartstudio.com. Neal has really developed an interest in fly photography. His site has several good articles, interviews and examples.

The short answer to your question is probably that your lens is not suited to macro photography -- it is not designed for close-distance focusing. Check the minimum focal distance on your lens. Some of the point and shoot cameras, however, have a specific macro setting.

[FFNC]

You need a macro lens or a point and shoot with a built in macro to shoot those. Your camera might have a Macro and you might not know it.....look for the Flower symbol on the camera some where. If you know the model and make, we could tell you if the camera has the Macro or not.


Looks like this
It might be on your mode button.

Also another good site for info is http://globalflyfisher.com/gallery/digitizing/

[shawnw315]

well what you think of this pic? any thing else I can do to improve quality?



http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...hitaker/he.jpg

[FFNC]

Looks good to me....shoot it from the side though...use a tripod of some sorts too.

[shawnw315]

thanks for the help

[lone_angler]

Always remember the minimum focus distance. Crop your photo's to the size you want. Use some type of background, I use a blue notebook. Look at my fly patterns on my blog, all the pics were taken on closeup setting and then cropped to what I wanted.

[flytire]

a macro lens on your camera is nice to have but it really isnt necessary. i can use the "AF" mode on my pentax optio w30 and get great photos.

use a tripod. it eliminates the shakes. dont have one, try a "bottle cap tripod" its easy to make: http://www.diyphotography.net/the-su...tle-cap-tripod

read the manual. it has all the setting for close up work.

use plenty of light. one light on top and one on the bottom is good.

adjust the white balance for the type of light you are using. its in the manual on how to do that.

use a background that is pleasing to the eye. nobody wants to see the clutter you have on your tying station.

resize your photo using free resizing software or resize your photo using the tools in photobucket. a good size would be 600-800 pixels wide. posting a photo right out of the camera onto a bulletin board post id too big and requires the viewer to scroll up-down, side to side to view your photo.

use free photo editing software from the net. a good one is "photoscape". you can use this software to make adjustments to your photos and its good for cropping your photo as well. plus it does a whole lot more. just google it

when taking a photo, depress the shutter only 1/2 of the way down to let the camera focus on the subject. once focused, depress the shutter completely to take the photo.

almost forgot, read the manual

go to google and type in the box "macro photography" and search the results for more mind boggling info on the subject

[Silvercreek]

I wrote an article on a simple method to take fly photos with a point and shoot digital camera and a styrofoam drink cup.

See pg 3 of our TU newsletter below:

http://www.wrvtu.org/PDF/newsletter3-4.pdf

You should get photos like this