#36744: — 08/21  at  12:19 PM
Too late, you have raised the bar. We demand 3-D stereo pair photos of flying insects!

#36758: Alex — 08/21  at  01:20 PM
Seems more interesting from a gadgetary perspective than an aesthetic one. One can get perfectly good flying insect photographs and have more control over composition with a more standard photography SLR set-up. Plus, there's no need to go into the field looking like you're searching for land mines. All it takes is practice and a bit of patience:

Long-tongued horse fly

Duelling flies

#36772: Radagast — 08/21  at  03:45 PM
Alex - your pictures are great, but I would beg to disagree that a setup like this is unnecessary. Getting pictures of insects in sustained flight is hard, especially when they're doing anything other than approaching a flower or landing spot, and that's where this person's setup excels.

#36777: Alex — 08/21  at  04:25 PM
Rad-

Sure, but all of his photos are still of insects taking off or landing around flowers. There's not a single one of a cruising insect in there, and I'd venture that's because he still needs the insect to be moving relatively slowly in order to get close enough to trigger the shot.

#36821: George — 08/22  at  01:11 AM
Sounds interesting! Your pictures are great.

#36871: — 08/22  at  08:50 AM
Thanks for this PZ! This is my first exposure (oops!) to fotoopa's work. His understanding of the principles of photography are rock solid. When you combine that with his ingenuity, craftsmanship and a willingness to take risks his results are eye-popping.
_____________

I beg to differ with Alex on his points. The insects in the photos are taking off, cruising and landing. I agree that with some luck and many, many missed shots a standard macro setup could get a few images of comparable quality. However, fotoopa's setup, albeit ridiculous looking delivers the goods probably with better consistency. Besides, if you think you've just seen a new species of flying critter and a publication in Nature is on the line, you might only get a few shots. Better make them count.

#36901: — 08/22  at  11:00 AM
Here's something a little different:

In Vivo X-Ray Diffraction of Indirect Flight Muscle from Drosophila melanogaster

Small-angle x-ray diffraction from isolated muscle preparations is commonly used to obtain time-resolved structural information during contraction. We extended this technique to the thoracic flight muscles of living fruit flies, at rest and during tethered flight...

Including diffraction photos and a schematic of the apparatus.

#36904: — 08/22  at  11:08 AM

In Vivo X-Ray Diffraction of Indirect Flight Muscle from Drosophila melanogaster

It's tough being a fruit fly. Everyone's out to eat you, wallop you, ether you, dissect you or zap you with their latest ray gun. At least some of the scientists do let you have lots of sex first though (and typically the kinkier you are beforehand the better your chances of this being your fate).