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3. What's the best lighting source?

All photographers out there. What is the best lighting source for photographing fly imitations? I've been messing around with variations and nothing works as well as I would like it. Being and novice with photography, any help would be great.

I use the Canon MT-24EX macro flash using cross-polarization to cut down on glare from the flash. It's the same setup I use for bugs. It's expensive, but I think it is the best.

Not that I know anywhere near as much as Jason does about this stuff, but my wife and I have been figuring out for awhile how to take pictures of artificials and we've come up with a set-up we like.

The first thing you have to figure out is how much money you want to spend. If you're just looking to put together an amateur studio to take a few shots of things you tied up, then you can check out some do-it-yourself sites with simple Google searches. If you want to take photos of the quality Jason does, then you're talking about investing at least a few grand in really nice lenses and lights (the macro flash he uses is extremely not-cheap, for example). You'll have to do some research and find out what the best set-up is for the cash you're willing to spend.

My flies are artistic creations and are a bit different to photograph than regular fishing flies, but here's how we do it: We use a lighting tent and two (though we'd like to have three) studio lights. We manipulate background colors by positioning acrylic and felt as desired, and play with lighting positions ad nauseum until we get it right. Having a digital camera makes this kind of playing around 100 times easier (we have the camera hooked up directly to the computer while we're snapping photos). The learning curve with a digital set-up is so much steeper than with a film camera that it is impossible to overstate. If you don't already know a ton about photography and can afford it, GO DIGITAL. Even if you think you can't afford it, go digital anyway! To learn how to get consistently high-level results, you will spend more money on film and developing costs than you will buying a nice digital camera. It's a no-brainer.

If you're having problems with the lighting sucking, you need to use professional lighting of some sort - the difference is tremendous. Controlling lighting is the single most difficult thing to learn, so make sure you understand how and when to manually override the default settings on your camera. The next most important consideration is the lens - you must have a good macro lens to make good photos of flies even possible. Finally, you have to be working from a tripod and be doing everything you can to minimize camera shake (using a timer, cable release, or remote release, keeping kids from stomping around the room while you're photographing, etc.).

We don't use the polarizing filters Jason suggests, but on his recommendation we're planning on trying them soon.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

OK, Great. What's a studio light? Where can I find them? I have a lot to learn but will do things piecemeal until I get it right. Thanks for the great responses.

Psyfly,
If a budget is your issue studio lights will be tough. A simple but effective altenative is to make your own soft box. Plans abound but can be as simple as cutting the sides out of a cardboard box leaving a skeleton and then covering the openings with a transluCent material. Using very inexspensive clamp on reflector type. shop lights shining on the outside of the box. You end up with nice even light diffused around your items. By altering the color of the material you can completely change the effect and back drops are as easy as a sheet of paper in the back of the box.
About as cheap as you can get for a photo accessory and very utilitarian.