topic Re: Blow Fly Macro in Share Your Photos

Blow Fly Macro

FloridaDrafter — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 21:02:47 GMT

This fly is in the family Calliphoridae but I'm not sure which subfamily (there are many). I named the file "Green Bottle Fly", but they are typically bigger than this fly which is just a bit bigger than a house fly. The Green Bottle does have those big red eyes, so it may indeed be a small one.

EOS R5 mark II with RF f/2.8 IS USM Macro lens, hand held. 1/200th, f/13, ISO 2000.

!/640th, f/13, ISO 4000.

Newton

Re: Blow Fly Macro

shadowsports — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 21:54:03 GMT

Newton,

Love the detail.of the eyes. 😍

Re: Blow Fly Macro

FloridaDrafter — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 23:20:45 GMT

They typically don't let me get that close 🙂

Newton

Re: Blow Fly Macro

Cyrilbrd — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 23:53:47 GMT

Distance to subject? Very nice. One shot right? No stacking...

Re: Blow Fly Macro

FloridaDrafter — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 03:54:55 GMT

@Cyrilbrd wrote:

Distance to subject? Very nice. One shot right? No stacking...

The first one was roughly 5.5" (1:1) and the second was at MFD, or roughly 4.4" (1.4:1) from the end of the barrel. I'm not sure what ratio I cropped to, but they both made great 12" prints. This lens has an MFD of roughly 10.32" from the sensor, so minus the length of the lens, you're a pretty close 4.4"+/-. I typically remove the hood for insect macro and this gives me a buffer to keep from scaring off skittish critters.

Correct, 1 shot, no stacking so f/13 was adequate for what I wanted to capture. I pulled back a little on the top shot to increase DOF a bit, then went to MFD to get the face area only. In the past, I've upped my ISO to increase aperture and DOF, but this guy spooked after about 8 shots. I like the way the R5 series handle high ISO, I have the classic and mark II. The R6 series do a bit better, but my preference is the 45mp 5's, so my wife uses the R6 series 🙂

Newton

Re: Blow Fly Macro

Cyrilbrd — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 05:16:04 GMT

Thanks for the feedback, usually I try first some distance then slowly close the distance with the subject (on land or underwater), so for instance a fly shot like what you did would give me much less details, but also my distance is greater. I agree with your assessment with the R5 II, pushing ISO and 45mp are definitely a huge bonus for macro shots, but also a lot more complex than my 20D.
Will try to get close up and personal with next subject as you so masterfully demonstrated in these two pictures.
When cropping usually I try not to go lower than 3,600 pixels (length or height).
Will experiment once weather permits.