Dark-winged Fungus Gnat - Sciaridae

Family: Sciaridae
Order: Diptera

The subject was about 3.2mm long.

The shot was taken handheld using a Sony A7R with a Laowa magnifying macro lens at 3.5x. Shutter speed was 1/60 and aperture was F2.8. ISO was fixed at 100 and I adjusted the aperture and shutter speed until the image was bright enough. Flash was set to manual and strength 1/64. The flash was diffused with a CJ Diffuser.

I took a total of 82 images and stacked them using Boltnev and Kacher's "Focus Stacker" software. Obviously, that is an excess of images for the stack, but necessary when handholding and using a lens with a depth of field in the 10s of microns. The excess ensures that all focus points are covered by at least one of the shots. The B&K app was able to align all 82 handheld images without any problems.

©Phil Warb