User picture for Fred Schaffer
Fred Schaffer

Cluster Fly

I took this MFT photo with a 90mm macro lens + 2x teleconverter; flash and diffuser. The photo is composed of 159 stacked images.

Wildlife
fly
macro
insect

11 Comments

User picture for Link Burns
Link Burns May 10, 2026 - 10:24 am

I see some people giving this less than 5 stars and I have to ask why? Its obviously in focus with great detail and excellently lit so as far as a photo of a bugs head I don't know what more you could do to improve on it. Excellent photo Fred. For those that low balled it I would like to hear what it is they think should be different. 5 Stars all day.

3
0
User picture for Fred Schaffer
Fred Schaffer May 10, 2026 - 11:51 am
Link Burns

Thanks so much, Link! I appreciate your support

1
0
User picture for Josh Ostwald
Josh Ostwald May 26, 2026 - 3:58 am
Link Burns

It's an excellent photograph, no doubt about it BUT it's not "perfect" or "flawless".

Why?
Because on the right side there's a noticable bright halo around the eye cluster which is accompanied by a darker rim toward the photograph's edges, even on a small screen without zooming in it's quite noticable.
And on the left side a similar dark halo is visible on a small screen with minimal zooming.

While the right side appears to look similar to "oversharpening artifacts", the left side is definitely clipping the darks.
Sadly I don't do nearly enough focus stacking to determine if it's just artifacting from that stacking process or if it stems from other mishaps during post processing.

TLDR:
It's an amazing photograph, definitely worthy of an AT LEAST excellent rating in a contest. But it's not a "world-class, flawless" photograph. So, I can see why not everyone is rating it five stars, due to a more pedantic interpretation of the star rating guidelines.

0
0
More From Fred Schaffer