Best viewed at 1280 x 1024 -- but this page is readable at 800 x 600 pixelsHere's a quick summary of what I've learned about closeup digital fly photography to date:You can make pretty good studio close-ups photos with a light tent and a vest-pocket size digital camera. Most of the fly photos on this site where made with a Nikon Coolpix 995. My earliest efforts (some are still on the website) were pretty bad. 
But I recently bought a Nikon D70. I use a single closeup tube
as an adapter, in order to mount the D70 body on the back
end of a PB6 bellows. The link called "The Camera," at screen
lower left, shows that rig attached to a 105mm Macro lense.
But a standard 200mm telephoto works well too.
To make photos like this one, of the Yellow Troth Hopper, I set the white balance to incandescent, the light sensitivity to ASA 200, and then experiment with exposures, which usually end up somewhere between 2-3 seconds at F32. Most closeup photography manuals stress the importance of providing an undiffused backlight--shining on the subject from behind--to help delineate the edges of the image, from the background. You can do that with a smooth piece of reflective aluminum foil, a mirror or a microscope light. Light tent illumination can be a little flat, so it often helps too to set the color saturation up a knotch or two. |
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Foam Cardboard Frame
Add Background
Light Tent Cover
Cheap Tungsten Lights
Add Subject
Lights On
The Camera