recent ties

[letumgo]

That is terrific! The photo presents your fly in nice detail. Beautiful...

[fly_fischa]

Hi Otto,

I think that's a huge improvement from your last attempt. There's a lot more detail in the photo, you can tell that you got a bit closer in this pic.
There are a few things that stand out to me that you may want to consider;
1. The photo isn't pin sharp - possible cause, Not using a tripod, if you are then you may not be using the self timer to trip the shutter. Another cause might be that you've focused on the background not the subject, easy to do in macro photography.
2. The white balance is out of whack. possible cause, Not using auto white balance AWB (it should be the camera default), using different colour temperature bulbs as a light source, even if you are using two to three desk lamps with identical colour temp bulbs, remember to switch off your standard room light before you take the shot.

I hope this makes sense? In any case you are definitely on the right track.

K

P.S. The correct white balance is important so that white appears white in the image not reddish or yellow in shade.

[newriverspey]

Karsten,
i am using an off white background, which may account for the odd color to the background. the auto timer is set for 2 seconds but i will keep fine tuning. thanks for your help and i here is one more. i am beginning to hate this fly!

[fly_fischa]

Otto,

That's a really nice photo, and a great fly to boot. I'd certainly fish it in a heartbeat! It's got a really buggy appeal to it, the scruffy thorax and hackle combination is spot on in my books.
Finding fault with your ties will likely become a more common occurrence (certainly has with me), you'll be loving the look of a tie only to find fault with it once you take a macro shot. The camera doesn't lie, the blasted thing magnifies stuff

It's all fun and games, and the off colour background makes sense, shoulda thought of that.
A 2 sec timer is fine, 10secs just gives you a bit more time to get clear.

I look forward to your future contributions.

[letumgo]

"i am beginning to hate this fly!" (chuckle)

In all seriousness, I think you've got it dialed in quit nicely. I like the size of the last one you posted. The 800 pixels allows the image to be expanded to see finer details. I generally settle on a finished image size of 640 to 800 pixels wide, depending on the level of detail I want to show. I look forward to seeing more of your flies in the future. You can play around with the lighting and background with each new fly.

[willowhead]

Nice tyin'.......keep 'em commin'

[DOUGSDEN]

Otto,
What you have done here is incredible! And your photography is coming right along too!
Your patterns have a wonderful quality about them....it's hard to describe. What ever you are doing, keep doing it!
Please show us more of what you do in the near future. It's great!
Dougsden

[Roadkill]

newriverspey

Beautiful flies and you have gotten the photo dialed in as well. My personal choice in a background is to highlight the fly elements so that the feather and body colors are distinct from the background color.

I can usually tie a fishing fly based on a picture. A familiar exercise for me started decades ago when I cut photos out of the fly selections of my favorite catalogues and pasted them into the slots of 18 section plastic fly boxes to remind myself of wish list flies I wanted to tie and fish.

[newriverspey]

many thanks for all your comments and i am trying to get the hang of taking better pictures. i really need to thank letumgo and karsten for all their help. karsten, even though you are a few thousand miles away, i am glad for this forum lead me your way and for your help and patience with me. take care and i hope to post some more pictures in the future. otto