Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

A fly in the garden.

(Download)

R.G. Loc: Scotland

This type of shot is all about the sharpness of the subject, and nothing in this shot is sharp. At 300mm focal length you need a shutter speed faster than 1/125 (assuming that the shot was hand-held). Can we assume that you had a focus lock on the subject?

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Bob, I'm very interested in hearing your reply to R.G.'s comment that this "type of shot is all about the sharpness of the subject."

My first impression is eww, out of focus! But would you have posted if you didn't like it? And if you like it, then there's a reason and that's what I would appreciate your discussing: are you happy with the result? What was your goal with the image? I often go for a certain look that doesn't translate well to viewers, that's why I'm most curious

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Yep, out of focus, but the colour contrast and the black of the fly make the shot attractive. If you used a 300, was it simply too close for the lens to focus?

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

as a traditional macro type shot focused on detail, it fails. But as a color study I think it succeeds immensely. I like much how the fly's yellow and green ties it fully into the image. I like the swirling greens and the yellow/purple counterpunch upper left.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Thank you RG, Linda, and Magnetoman for the questions.
To answer the questions. I was taking pictures of some small flowers in the garden and my wife saw the fly and encouraged me to photograph it. It was taken hand held with a 70-300 zoomed to 300 at about 6 feet. I didn't have focus lock on, I just autofocused on the fly and took several shots. I wanted to keep it at iso 100, so had to lower the shutter speed to 1/125 sec and the aperture to f5.6.The depth of field is pretty shallow (about 1/8" in front of and behind the subject). I think the fly's left wing is probably more in focus than anything else. If I had time to think about it I might have tried using flash and increasing the f-stop to something like f16 which would have increased the depth of field to 1/3" in front and in back of the focal point. I had mixed feelings about it but I tweaked and cropped the pic to give it some color appeal. My first thought was it's not in sharp focus. But then I was watching a French police series on Netflix called "Witnesses" and was admiring the cinematography and the use of long takes and soft focus and lots of out of focus to soft focus transitions, so I thought maybe sharp focus is not the only thing that can be acceptable.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Thank you pfrancke. I appreciate the compliment.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Well you're right about that Bob, plenty of the accepted 'classic' photos around are not sharp, and it certainly isn't a must in every case. Unfortunately, for flies, it probably should be.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

You are right, I would have preferred if the fly and the flower both were in sharp focus. But I'm still happy with it. I think there is enough there to grab the eye. And thanks for the earlier compliment as well.