I would like to get to the point where I can outline a "what I've learned" post, but I'm not there yet. It seems like every time I sneak down to take a few shots I come up against all sorts of things that need to be worked out. More reading is in order to move forward from here. But, I will post a few shots of the photo set up and hopefully it's to a point where it won't need anything else. It's simple enough. It will need to remain in sight and readily available, or I just won't use it.
My first little dedicated photo set up was put together in 2011. My attempt to figure out what Hans was doing and get the same lighting effect. I never even came close, but it worked for a long time.
2011 - With this set up, I have always had to put the camera lens literally within an inch of the fly and that eliminated any light striking the fly from the front, which is evident in all those shots. Pumping light in from above and below and from the right was almost enough.
2015 - The two Ott lights are identical. I just took the stand off the one on the right and glued magnets to the bottom so it stands rock solid on its end. Both of these lights are standing on steel plates with the use of magnets and can move around very easily. The one above can hinge, pivot and roll. Obviously you want all other light sources in the room off. Windows too. I just opened these to get shots of the set up. I even had trouble with that.
The background panel is leaning against a "bookend" that is held to the bottom of the upper steel base with magnets. The whole things comes undone and packs away if needed. The white stage card sits on the little acrylic stand.
The aluminum foil reflector card slides around to the left of the lens. I have diffuser paper that I rolled into a tube and taped so it can just slide over the lamp, but I haven't been using it.
The clamp to hold flies in profile is held on the backside of the light's post and the tripod is lowered to shoot straight across.
Not a great shot, but not all of them are.
For the stone shots the tripod is set to shoot the fly from a much shallower angle than those shot on the white stage.
I tried shooting some flies in the wet tank, but it's going to take some time to work that out. Nothing to show today.
Once this is squared away and I learn to use the camera, I would hope the whole thing will be much simpler.