Species introCountry intro
Long Legged Green Fly or Condylostylus longicornis
These beautiful flies are beneficial as they eat plant aphids and mites. There are over 250 species of this genius. It is going to take a lot more than one or two photos to confirm this to species level. I will enjoy it for its beauty.
Condylostylus longicornis is a long-legged fly in the Condylostylus genus.
Similar species: True Flies
By William Bodine
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Uploaded Jun 9, 2022. Captured Jun 8, 2022 20:28 in 2847 E Fountain St, Mesa, AZ 85213, USA.
comments (11)
Why is it I am never satisfied with the photo? I see all kinds of things I could or should do, but lose interest or time as I move on to other projects. Are other macro people like me too? Posted 3 years ago
A key can be found here:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/42317 Posted 3 years ago
I just posted another shot of the dorsal side of the fly. I will take look at the two species you suggested. Condylostylus caudatus group or Condylostylus longicornis. Posted 3 years ago
It looks very close to Condylostylus longicornis which is prominent in the SW USA. Lets call it! Posted 3 years ago
1. Composition is decent and positioning OK. One tiny detail makes a difference though, the bent leg. If it would be straight or in a more natural position, the photo would pass as possible living subject, which is generally more attractive (in my opinion). I do realize how hard it is to do though, those legs don't always cooperate.
2. There's this blue-ish color hinge across the photo. I wonder if it's a white balance problem, or perhaps you intentionally were going for it as an artistic choice? Somewhat related to this point is that I find the shadows lifted too far. The photo only has midtones and few deep shadows or highlights, that makes it a bit more "bland".
3. I'm not a big fan of this background. It seems a bit random. I'd prefer a clear choice for white, dark, or a deep color, but this seems whitish with lots of color "leaks". If that was intentional, forgive me, then we simply have a different taste.
4. There's room for improvement in cleaning up in post processing. For example, the smudges around the subject in various places. Not a fun job to do, but it looks less sloppy.
Interestingly, your other angle on this subject has none of the above "problems".
Keep up the good work, it's a difficult hobby, getting everything right is close to torture. Posted 3 years ago
I very much appreciate and seek out comments and critique. Everything I have learned has been on my own via YouTube and other posted videos online. Less than a year ago I was just understanding the very basics of my photo editing software GIMP. I had hardly touched any of the manual settings on my camera. I was mostly point-and-shoot. So, I look to others who offer more experience.
The composition was not exactly as I liked it. The leg certainly would’ve looked better if I could’ve extended it. The whole insect was about 5 mm long making it very difficult to get it into any type of pose. Initially I wanted it on a green leaf, but I just couldn’t get there without destroying heads, wings, and legs. It finally got to the point I just decided to move on, glue it on a pin and put it in front of a background. The dorsal view on the green background was actually taken in front of a leaf that the fly was captured on.
I should check my white balance which I don’t do very often as that may help eliminate some of the blue tint. Additionally, the photo does look flat. Do I eliminate that by increasing or decreasing the lighting on one side or is that managed better in post using contrast or hue saturation? What do you normally use?
Yes, I really struggled with this background. I like your idea of going with a single solid color. That will help get rid of a lot of variances and smudges. I think I might try and switch over to flash instead of continuous lighting. I can shoot at a higher shutter speed eliminating highlight “white worms” artifact and other motion problems. When I start getting into the 3X to 5X magnification realm, minor problems all of a sudden become very noticeable.
The dorsal view on the green background was actually the leaf from the tree. And I totally agree there’s always room for more cleanup in editing. I’m really slow at it and I think I just got tired and fed up with it all.
I still greatly enjoy the process of discovering new things I have never seen before in my close-up and macro photos. I had no idea how much time it actually took to prepare, compose, shoot, and edit many of the macro shots. Even some of my worst shots still amaze me so I will keep going.
Thanks so much for your comments. It would be fantastic to have a live hands-on mentor other than watching a video of Alan Walls from 2000 miles away. Maybe one of these days I might even take an actual photography class.
Posted 3 years ago
For white balance, I think you might have it set to auto white balance? In a controlled environment like this, you can just set it to "flash", which is a perfectly neutral white balance of 5300-5600K. This way the scene should not look overly cold or hot.
As for contrast, I think there's nothing wrong with the exposure itself in this photo, rather I think something is missing in the post processing step regarding shadows, that are too bright (in my opinion). You can play around with the contrast slider, deepening blacks/shadows specifically, etc. A histogram is a good tool to inspect the tonality of an image.
I can relate to manually cleaning up an image costing a lot of time :)
Posted 3 years ago