This is the preserved horse fly that I keep in the freezer along with other fuzzy and hairy specimens. This one is going on its second year and appears to be holding up well so I staged it for a focus-stacking session with the Laowa 60mm f/2.8 1X-2X Super Macro lens dialed in at 1.5X to fill the frame of the camera and set at f/5.6.

Horse Flies, also known as Gadflies, are super-sized flies that excel at aggravating livestock and people. Though adults mostly drink nectar and plant juices (as you can see from the grains of pollen stuck on its hairs), female horse flies need protein in order to produce eggs.

Unfortunately for us, blood is the source of this protein and it can come from people, horses, cows, sheep, deer, or even rabbits. The bite from a horse fly female can be felt right away, creating a red bump that hurts like the dickens. Swat at them as you may, they are persistent in biting.

Horse flies are active during the day and rest at night. They do not like darkness so they are less likely to bite us when we are in the shade. Some bloodborne pathogens can be transmitted from animal to animal through a horse fly bite and some treatable diseases like tularemia can be passed from animal to human which makes them not only a painful pest, but one that can transmit disease also.

This is my preserved Yellow Jacket that I staged for a focus stacking session using the 85mm 1X-5X macro lens that I've used on other recent posts. I stage the subject and dial in the amount of magnification to fill the frame with the subject.

I have found the sweet spot of the lens to perform best at f/5.6 and I set the shutter speed and exposure compensation using the histogram so it varies from session to session. The illumination that I use is constant lighting from three LED desk lamps diffused with vellum tracing paper rolled to create a light tunnel to surround the subject in even soft light.

Fall is starting to set in with the daylight hours getting shorter along with cooler evenings. It's the time of year that some insects are looking for a place that is warm and dry that they can overwinter which means that they will be looking for ways to get into our house.

I found this one crawling about on the wall by the exterior door of our "dog family room" where our dogs and I spend most of our time and I let the dogs out and let the dogs in, etc., etc., etc. about every two hours from early morning to late at night.

The size#000 mounting pin can be seen which shows how I stage them for their focus stacking sessions before the camera.