hoverflies in flight

it depends a lot on the equipment you use. I've used a Sony DCR-DVD 106 Camcorder with 50 fps and 720x576 pixels resolution. The video ist mostly zoomed in to avoid the black borders that result from repositioning the frames. That's also a reason (besides the lense being out of focus) why it looks unsharp in some scenes. You're right, it's quite difficult to capture it with such a camera. To make the wing movement visible you need a much hight shutter speed. Something like 500/sec or more would probably be helpful. If you have a much bigger resolution that's also helpful because in this case following the object of interest is much easier - just holding the camera in a certain direction will suffice and post-processing will do the rest. The out-of-focus issue may be a problem for almost every camera as the automatic focus is trying to adapt to a very difficult background and object situation. To adjust the focus manually is also very difficult as the fly will constantly change its distance. In the video I've focussed on the fly as a whole and it's rapid movements. Besides it shows the possibilities of post-processing. In the original video you would have a hard time seeing the hoverfly at all as it jumps from one point to another within a split second and moves fast across the screen. Thanks for watching :-)

Seems to me you really know your stuff about film making and such. Hope to see more of your works. Perhaps one day I'll have the pleasure of pointing out to one of my buddies your work and bragging that i had discussion about your earlier work. lol Hey you never know.

I know nothing about the cameras used in such things. I enjoyed watching it.

glad you enjoyed it! Thank you :-) I wish I had a high speed camera, maybe I can afford one in the future or I'll try to build one myself lol. That reminds me that I believe Casio offers a relatively cheap camera that makes up to 1200 pics/sec but with very low resolution. In contrast to usual flies which will just zig-zag through the air this one sometimes hovers and then it's possible to make short captures of it. I think yes, I was interested in it because it hovers so I'd be able to ''take a closer look'' at it during its flight. Yep, I only see them outside or below our corrugated roofs. But I'm also interested in it because I like plants and animals as a whole.

as a kid I always thought they were bees/wasps because of their appearance until someone told me that they are flies and don't possess a sting. There are many different species. You can find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverfly

thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. My internet connection is slow, too. Still surfing on low-DSL-bandwith (some 384 kBit/s). Cheers