Two droplets, one lichen, one ? barkfly (and three springtails)

gardenersassistant · Jan 17, 2022

I didn't notice the springtail under the lichen or even the more obvious ones with the barkfly.

These images were captured hand-held at the church grounds opposite our house earlier today with a Canon EF mount Laowa 100mm 2X macro lens and a pair of 2X Kenko teleconverters attached to a Sony A7rii with a Sigma MC-11 EF to Sony E mount adapter, and a Yongnuo YN24EX twin flash with flash heads reversed and firing into a 12 inch (30cm) diameter bowl lined with printer paper over aluminium foil, and a single diffusion layer of artificial silk.

The raw files were processed with PhotoLab, Lightroom and DeNoise AI.

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--
Nick
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macrouser · Jan 18, 2022

I like the water drops.

The spring tails look more like the tropical ones here.

I am not to sure about the barkfly. This insect does not have the rounded head that I would expect on a barkfly. I have seen some here that have antenna like that but I have not learned what they are yet.

gardenersassistant · Jan 18, 2022

macrouser said:
I like the water drops.

Thanks.

macrouser said:
The spring tails look more like the tropical ones here.

I see quite a lot of these cylindrically shaped ones (as well as the globular ones). These seem rather smaller than the ones I usually see.

macrouser said:
I am not to sure about the barkfly. This insect does not have the rounded head that I would expect on a barkfly. I have seen some here that have antenna like that but I have not learned what they are yet.

I looked on the gallery page of the Britain and Ireland National Barkfly Recording Scheme but didn't see it there. I have sent an email to them asking if it is a barkfly.

Ippe1966 · Jan 18, 2022

I think the barkfly is maybe a Trioza urticae.

Cheers,

Philip

gardenersassistant · Jan 18, 2022

Ippe1966 said:
I think the barkfly is maybe a Trioza urticae.

Cheers,

Philip

Thanks Philip, that is very helpful. It certainly looks like it (for example here at BritishBugs.org). So that would mean, I think, that macrouser was right (here) and it isn't actually a barkfly?

macrouser · Jan 18, 2022

I will need to find my photos to see if they are in that family. It is something new to me.

There is at lest one Trioza in Australia.

DWL-P · Jan 19, 2022

Hi Nick, lovely detailed and interesting set as usual, well done.

gardenersassistant · Jan 19, 2022

DWL-P said:
Hi Nick, lovely detailed and interesting set as usual, well done.

Thank you.

John K · Jan 21, 2022

Nice set!

Did you focus stack the drops to catch the refraction or did you manage to get it in a single frame?

gardenersassistant · Jan 21, 2022

John K said:
Nice set!

Thanks John.

John K said:
Did you focus stack the drops to catch the refraction or did you manage to get it in a single frame?

Single frame. I used f/64 as showing in Exif, so with the magnification probably having been around 6X to 8X the effective f-number was probably around f/160 to 1/190. That is a smaller aperture than usual, and so had an even greater loss of detail than usual. I used that extra-small aperture because I had previously discovered that I could get away with even smaller than f/45 apertures for shots like that and get more DOF. I think it works because there is virtually no fine detail to be lost in scenes like that. I used f/64 for the lichen for the same reason, although the magnification would probably have been less so the effective aperture would not have been so small.

I did have to get even more aggressive than usual with the processing for the droplets to get something that I was prepared to keep/post. The rest were my now usual f/45 with my currently normal (for this setup) processing.

I have very occasionally used this rig's minimum aperture of f/90. For example I used f/36 for this shot .....

... and then closed in on it (probably approaching 8X) and turned the aperture down to f/90, so presumably effective plenty north of f/200 to get this (I don't remember the processing, but I suspect it must have been very aggressive).

Incidentally, little or no cropping for the images in the top post, and I think none at all for these two extra ones. As you know, I have nothing against cropping and I do do compositional cropping. (I can't reliably hand-hold precise compositions at these magnifications, especially with insects like the one in the top post that are on the move.) But with these very soft images there isn't much scope for cropping; the originals simply don't have enough detail for deeper cropping.

--
Nick
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Blog

Flies and flowers and ...... whatever. Ramblings

fliesandflowersetc-ramblings.blogspot.com

Summary of photo activity since 2007 https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-i-retired-in-2006-i-had-it-in-mind.html

John K · Jan 21, 2022

gardenersassistant said:
John K said:

Nice set!

Click to expand...

Thanks John.

gardenersassistant said:

Did you focus stack the drops to catch the refraction or did you manage to get it in a single frame?

Click to expand...

Single frame.

Very impressive!

gardenersassistant said:
Incidentally, little or no cropping for the images in the top post, and I think none at all for these two extra ones. As you know, I have nothing against cropping and I do do compositional cropping. (I can't reliably hand-hold precise compositions at these magnifications, especially with insects like the one in the top post that are on the move.)

I run into the same issues. If I am "in zone" and the critter is not zooming across the frame then I might pull it off. But it takes a lot of mental and physical effort to track a moving critter at 2x and higher mag and nail the framing + where the depth of field is gonna fall in the scene. Just too many variables...

gardenersassistant said:
But with these very soft images there isn't much scope for cropping; the originals simply don't have enough detail for deeper cropping.

I can see that. But then again it is like you said; there is not enough fine detail so the diffraction softening is no big deal. Excellent work!

gardenersassistant · Jan 21, 2022

John K said:
gardenersassistant said:

John K said:

Nice set!

Click to expand...

Thanks John.

John K said:

Did you focus stack the drops to catch the refraction or did you manage to get it in a single frame?

Click to expand...

Single frame.

Click to expand...

Very impressive!

John K said:

Incidentally, little or no cropping for the images in the top post, and I think none at all for these two extra ones. As you know, I have nothing against cropping and I do do compositional cropping. (I can't reliably hand-hold precise compositions at these magnifications, especially with insects like the one in the top post that are on the move.)

Click to expand...

I run into the same issues. If I am "in zone" and the critter is not zooming across the frame then I might pull it off. But it takes a lot of mental and physical effort to track a moving critter at 2x and higher mag and nail the framing + where the depth of field is gonna fall in the scene. Just too many variables...

Exactly so.

I really like doing sequences, one sort of which is the "subject wandering around" type of sequence. Quite apart from all the missed shots, for the ones that do get the subject somewhere in the frame and the plane of focus acceptable, the framing is all over the place, requiring crops. Even with cropping it may not be possible to get the subject on the "proper" side of the frame relative to its movement (more space in front of it than behind). I loosen my criteria a bit for acceptableness of individual images within series, both in terms of composition and focus placement.

Then two and half minutes after the first time it turned up on this twig (second image above), here it was again.

John K said:
John K said:

But with these very soft images there isn't much scope for cropping; the originals simply don't have enough detail for deeper cropping.

Click to expand...

I can see that. But then again it is like you said; there is not enough fine detail so the diffraction softening is no big deal. Excellent work!

Thanks.

--
Nick
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Summary of photo activity since 2007 https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-i-retired-in-2006-i-had-it-in-mind.html

John K · Jan 21, 2022

gardenersassistant said:

Normally I am not a fan of shots where the subject is looking away from the camera, but the composition and light on that shot is just beautiful!

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gardenersassistant · Jan 21, 2022

John K said:
gardenersassistant said:

Click to expand...

Normally I am not a fan of shots where the subject is looking away from the camera, but the composition and light on that shot is just beautiful!

Thanks John.

We have a different take on "looking away" shots. I'm very comfortable with them, especially perhaps in the context of series, but as non-series shots too. Arguably some of these are less "subject looking away" and more "looking down on the subject" or "seen more or less from the side" shots, but for me the various angles meld together seamlessly. When watching animals doing their thing we see them from various angles, and I'm happy to capture that.