What to buy to help improve macro.

[jimmy156]

Hi all,

So with a combination of Christmas and my birthday i have £80 worth of calumet vouchers to spend. I want to spend it on stuff to help me out with macro photography, particularly lighting. I'm willing to put some more money towards it as well if needs be.

So whats important? I have a Nissin Di622 flash, which less then ideal when sat in the hotshoe.

- Off camera flash bracket?
- wireless trigger/wired off camera cord?
- diffuser?
- Decent tripod (what are the Calumet branded ones like?) as mine was a free be and is rubbish!
- ditch the di622 for macro work and get a cheap ring flash (marumi or similar)

I'm open to any other suggestions as well as i just cannot decide what to get!

Cheers, James

[K12beano]

jimmy156 said:

- Decent tripod

[jimmy156]

K12beano said:

I do like the idea of a good tripod. Does anyone know who makes the Calumet branded ones and if they are decent?

Only thing with getting a tripod would be that i already have one, albeit a crap one, but i dont have any real way of using flash with macro photography.

[dibbly dobbler]

Good flash is essential IMHO

If you can stop down to get decent dof but maintain a reasonable shutter speed (which you can with a flash) then a tripod wouldn't help that much I'd have thought. The world of macro really got going for me when I bought a good flash and could shoot at F16 + 1/200, for example, rather than crapping around at F4 and 1/20 which I was before

[dibbly dobbler]

4hero said:

Tell Jimmy to forget the tripod but good lighting is essential!

[14-7]

When I first started doing macro I thought I needed a tripod.

That was until I got a tripod then realised I needed a flash. I now very rarely use a tripod unless I want to use mirror lock up for static shots.

Unfortunately due to prefering to photo bugs a tripod is useless.

My opinion, buy a Marumi ring flash with the cash you have.

[jimmy156]

Thanks dibbly dobbler, 4hero and 14-7. I think lighting is the way forward. Annoyingly Calumet don't stock the Marumi one, they have only the Canon and Sigma, both of which are out of budget