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Joe Svelnys's picture

Mid-flight Macro...

I bumped into a situation to try something new today. I came across these hover-flies(?) that were hanging out in a column of light piercing down thru the woodland canopy.

This was taken with a Nikon z6 using my 200-500mm Nikkor lens. I really wish I had a telephoto macro lens but I don't own one, what a perfect opportunity for one though. I took well over 100 shots trying to nail the settings. The fly was in bright sunlight and the background deep-deep shadow.

I did post-process the heck out of this shot. Hopefully the compression algorithms didn't butcher it too badly while uploading it.

But yeah, my first time trying to take a macro shot of a fly while in flight and bobbing about it's day.

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26 Comments

It's a pretty good shot. I'm not sure about the border though.

Thanks. I added a boarderless version. It's weird sometimes I'm in a boarder mood, and other times not as much. :)

On the white, I couldn't see the border, and then I expanded the photo, and was like "Woah, I didn't realize that was there."

Heh. I can imagine, bam, surprise!

Great shot!

Thanks Troy, def interesting trying to get a shot of him flying about with a 500mm lens. haha

I imagine.

Hi Joe...hats off for persistence. As i tried my hand in some macros i can for the life of it not imagine how you track / focus and shoot the little gremlin Whilst moving... your skills would have been in high demand back in the day as an antiaircraft gunner before proximity fuses entered the market :)

Maybe we'll nickname Joe "Bofors", Marius. What do you reckon? ;-)

My father was a Bofors AA gunner in WWII, and a friend just gave me a shell casing he found somewhere.

Ha ha Chris .... wanted to upgrade him to an Ack Ack .... just imagine like the announcer in boxing will do... everytime Joe post something i will hear “ .... Joe Ack Ack Bofors Sveeeeelnysssss....” have a great day Joe!!! I mean it :)

PS . Chris .. Salute to your father .

Including Monte Cassino. He was one of the lucky ones.

Marius, Chris, you are both too funny... This cheered me up quite a bit, I needed the humor... Reading this, was a great end to an otherwise, bizarre, day. :)

Glad to hear we cheered you, Joe - sad to hear you needed it. You're definitely good for FS with your contributions and your knowledge - but above all your tone.

Incidentally. you reminded me recently with one of your comments that you've only been "into" photography seriously for a year or so. I was surprised, given your input, although I then recalled you'd mentioned this before.

Hope you have some good days now.

Yeah I was out yesterday morning at a nature preserve and bumped into a creepy person. just shook me all day. Then, a few other things happened like two friends I hadn't heard from in years both spontaneously came over (different times). It was just one of those days i guess.

and as always thank you for the kind words. :)

Man, that sounds kind of hard. It's also hard for me to believe that you've only been into photography for a year. You always know just what to say, and your pictures are good too. It seems like some of the better photographers on this website are new to it. I wonder if there is something to that.

Thank you Matthew.

Yeah photography for only a year now, picked up a used nikon d5500 last June... and a little over a month ago picked up a refabbed Z6. What a difference, though I was getting nice shots with the d5500 as well. I shoot on my daily hikes hoping the practice will pay off one day.

Back around 2005~2005 I worked as a production 3d modeler/animator at a local studio. But have been out of that "game" for nearly ten years now.

Wow. I've been using a D5600 since December. I only got it because my D3400 was having SD slot issues. The upgrade payed off, even such a small stat change. What made you pick up the D5500?

Love the d5500, nice camera and i still sue it. Hum.. it was a difficult choice, I remember struggling with the choice between cameras. I had a small budget (well small for a camera), max $500 including lenses. I believe a 3000 series new fit in that range but I bumped into a used but in nearly new condition d5500... for $300 at the time, on amazon. $50 for the 18~55 kit lens.. a month later got the 70~300 with stabilization (love this lens)... Amazon Day rolled around and I picked up the 200~500 for an amazing deal.

Why the 5500 over say the 5300 or the 5600? I think the 5300 was a year or two older, and something with the 5500 was different then the 5600... or they were so close in specs, I could just get the 5500 cheaper at that moment.

But yeah, good camera. I actually miss that crop factor! And now I'm looking into a 1.4 TC to get some of that reach back.:)

I also didn't want to spend too much if I ended up not sticking with the hobby, so I leaned away from the 7000 series and full frames.

Hey Joe, your perseverance definitely paid off. I can imagine this was difficult to capture, especially considering the lens you were using.

Thank you Alen.

Yeah I'm not one to "spray" fire, but the 12 fps of the z6 did help a lot, though I limit it to a 3 shot burst. The lens was def not ideal for this, very big, bulky, heavy, and focuses rather slow, and even slower given this very dark background.

I'm a bit late with my comment but yes, it's a hoverfly. I think they are quite delightful little flies unlike the bush flies we get here as well. To catch this one face on in mid flight is brilliant and kudos to you !!!

Thank you Sandra!

I tried again the other day but failed, settled on a slower moving chipmunk instead. :)

Ha !! you have chipmunks, we have possums.

Today, today I saw two chipmunks fighting, full on brawl, rolling on the ground not caring who can see them.. Wish I had my camera, they were only 10ft away from me at the time.

Chipmunks shouldn't fight, that just seems very wrong.