Meiosimyza fly

[Ecooper]

I was testing a new flash set-up in my garden the other day and found a few of these tiny flies (Meiosimyza sp.) wandering around on a bracken fern. They were tiny (4-5mm long; about 1/10 inch), colourful and mobile: the perfect test subjects for the flash!

I shot the fly at F16, so the resolution isn’t as sharp as it could be. I would have preferred to use F11, but I needed as much depth of field as I find hand-holding the camera for subjects this small is difficult at the best of times, but I found the new flash set-up a little too heavy and clumsy. It didn’t help of course that the flies were sitting on a fern only about 30cm (1 foot) above the ground, and it would have been easier if I’d attached the camera to a monopod. So I got a lot of nicely exposed but out of focus pictures; a few nicely exposed pictures where the fly had turned away from the camera; and this one nicely exposed, composed and properly focused photo. Clearly I am on the right track as far as lighting, but I think I need something lighter and simpler that gives the same results. I really need something that sets-up in seconds, preferably with the flash attached directly to the camera hot shoe. I have some ideas for how to put that together...

Cheers,

EC

www.macrocritters.wordpress.com



sm fly may 18_filtered by ernie.cooper, on Flickr

 

[Peter Clausen]

I'm really impressed with your photo and appreciate reading the background behind the shot. I hope to have a set up like you have someday, but I've got too many bugs to feed all the time and no time for other hobbies. I took about 40 photos today and of course none of them are nearly that nice. Bugguide mods have frassed the majority of my uploaded photos recently. Can't say I blame them. Do you upload your images there for idenification? Or do you have other means for learning the identity of the specimens you photograph? I'm so glad that they included both the US and Canada in the Bugguide database. I hope that Mexico is included someday (and why stop there?).

I have collected a few specimens of flies in the last week that look like yours, though I'd guess them to be a few mm larger. I suspect you are out in the yard as often as I am, watching the succession of species that come and go even on a week to week basis. I had expected a possible association between the sudden/recent appearance of these flies and the ripening of salmonberries in my yard, though only because the colors matched. But then the spores on the ferns in my yard are similar in color, I guess. Then again I suppose that orange is just not generally an uncommon color on flies. It is fun to see new bugs in the yard and imagine patterns, but your image definitely brings the reality of that fly to life!

 

[Ecooper]

I'm really impressed with your photo and appreciate reading the background behind the shot. I hope to have a set up like you have someday, but I've got too many bugs to feed all the time and no time for other hobbies. I took about 40 photos today and of course none of them are nearly that nice. Bugguide mods have frassed the majority of my uploaded photos recently. Can't say I blame them. Do you upload your images there for idenification? Or do you have other means for learning the identity of the specimens you photograph? I'm so glad that they included both the US and Canada in the Bugguide database. I hope that Mexico is included someday (and why stop there?).

I have collected a few specimens of flies in the last week that look like yours, though I'd guess them to be a few mm larger. I suspect you are out in the yard as often as I am, watching the succession of species that come and go even on a week to week basis. I had expected a possible association between the sudden/recent appearance of these flies and the ripening of salmonberries in my yard, though only because the colors matched. But then the spores on the ferns in my yard are similar in color, I guess. Then again I suppose that orange is just not generally an uncommon color on flies. It is fun to see new bugs in the yard and imagine patterns, but your image definitely brings the reality of that fly to life!

I sometimes use bugguide, its a great resource! I also look for help from http://insectnet.proboards.com/index.cgi. For fly identification though, I use http://www.diptera.info/forum/index.php.

Cheers,

EC

www.macrocritters.wordpress.com