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Description
Taken and submitted for the Detail in Macro contest .

** UPDATE **
Well I woke up this morning and what do I find, but I won the contest and I have a million congrats, comments, favs, and devwatches! How awesome is that?!

Thankyou so much to the judges for holding the competition and the donations. And thanks for all of your comments and favs etc. I have replied to all of the comments to date, but can't keep up with the favs, so I'll have to thank you all collectively here!

And finally, well done by all who entered. There were some great submissions in there. I didn't think I had a chance. What an awesome community we have here on dA!

Rig:
100mm macro lens and 68mm of extension tubes. Diffused flash off-camera on a bracket top left of lens (viewed from shooter's perspective).

Camera settings:
EXIF info embedded. Greater than 1:1 mag, not quite 2:1 mag with tubes - that is a blade of grass and the larger dewdrop is probably only 1-2mm diameter. The fly wasn't a big one - perhaps 10mm long max (estimated obviously).

Technique:
Handheld, laying on wet grass with elbows on the ground for stability. Manual focus to the mag and composition I wanted, then move whole camera forwards and backwards slightly until got the detailed focal point I was after. Need to get up early to get the dew and no wind.

I had been out for over an hour shooting for this contest. Was about to head home and thought I'd just check one last clump of longer grass. Saw a couple of interesting flies, spiders, some sort of larva in there. Took some shots, but then saw this fly and got all excited. Lay down in wet, dewy grass in amongst the spiders, maggots etc I'd just been shooting just to get that shot.

Post Processing:
Just cloned out some sensor dust spots, played with contrast and curves, resized for web and smart sharpened. Single shot only. I had some comments that the large dewdrop looks pasted in there, but it isn't. No focus stacking either.

Description
Taken and submitted for the Detail in Macro contest .

** UPDATE **
Well I woke up this morning and what do I find, but I won the contest and I have a million congrats, comments, favs, and devwatches! How awesome is that?!

Thankyou so much to the judges for holding the competition and the donations. And thanks for all of your comments and favs etc. I have replied to all of the comments to date, but can't keep up with the favs, so I'll have to thank you all collectively here!

And finally, well done by all who entered. There were some great submissions in there. I didn't think I had a chance. What an awesome community we have here on dA!

Rig:
100mm macro lens and 68mm of extension tubes. Diffused flash off-camera on a bracket top left of lens (viewed from shooter's perspective).

Camera settings:
EXIF info embedded. Greater than 1:1 mag, not quite 2:1 mag with tubes - that is a blade of grass and the larger dewdrop is probably only 1-2mm diameter. The fly wasn't a big one - perhaps 10mm long max (estimated obviously).

Technique:
Handheld, laying on wet grass with elbows on the ground for stability. Manual focus to the mag and composition I wanted, then move whole camera forwards and backwards slightly until got the detailed focal point I was after. Need to get up early to get the dew and no wind.

I had been out for over an hour shooting for this contest. Was about to head home and thought I'd just check one last clump of longer grass. Saw a couple of interesting flies, spiders, some sort of larva in there. Took some shots, but then saw this fly and got all excited. Lay down in wet, dewy grass in amongst the spiders, maggots etc I'd just been shooting just to get that shot.

Post Processing:
Just cloned out some sensor dust spots, played with contrast and curves, resized for web and smart sharpened. Single shot only. I had some comments that the large dewdrop looks pasted in there, but it isn't. No focus stacking either.