Macro Photo thread

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DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Tuesday 28th August 2018
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[quote=C&C]Really nice butterfly - I'm sure I've not seen one before - are they native to the uk?
[/quote]
Thanks - not native to the UK, got it in the Edinburgh Butterfly farm smile

C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Tuesday 28th August 2018
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DibblyDobbler said:
+1 - next step, get some diffusers rigged up for your flashes to give a softer light (packing foam, paper plates etc - homemade is best!)
I have a little extra time this week as have taken some leave, so spent a bit of time rigging up my mark 1 diffusers today.

Basically cut down plastic water bottles covered in tin foil with tin foil trays at the end to get the light nearer the subject.
Then in each tin tray I put 3 layers of that white thin foam packing (from the bags that TVs and the like are wrapped in when new).
I taped the contraption to small cheap plastic diffusers (from eBay) that just fit over the flash heads, so I can easily add/remove the whole thing as needed. Photo of the 1st go at diffusers:

Untitled by conradsphotos, on Flickr


Then I went out into the garden for a while this evening.
I didn't get as close as I'd like to the bees and spider (so the photos are significant crops).
Hope to get closer next time.

C&C - especially in terms of further suggestions around the diffusers - what to try next would be much appreciated.

spider1 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


blackberry by conradsphotos, on Flickr


bee1 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


bee2 by conradsphotos, on Flickr








DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Tuesday 28th August 2018
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^^^ These look bang on to me - nice light - setting bang on etc - very well done thumbup

DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Tuesday 28th August 2018
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More from the butterfly farm - some nice subjects but the light is garbage and the flash really washes out the colours so only moderately happy with the results...


Giant Owl Butterflies by Mike Smith, on Flickr

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Tuesday 28th August 2018
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[quote=C&C]


C&C - especially in terms of further suggestions around the diffusers - what to try next would be much appreciated.


[/quote]

As DD said, these look good especially for early modification attempts.

Quite a few systems come with options to re-balance light by having different output on one side compared to the other It might be interesting to try turning down the output power on one flash to induce a side light effect but still brighten shadows.

I seem to recall you mentioned using ETTL. I can understand the attraction but I often find it can produce unexpected results and manual settings are better if you can get the right. You can get more predictable control if you get enough practice, without always having to double guess what the ETTL system is going to react to.

Or it may be that I am just not conversant enough with the flash units and camera choices to get the results I expect with ETTL. I have some old Metz totally manual units that do their own in built light quenching and they seem to give more consistent results without having any idea about what is going on in the camera!

C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Wednesday 29th August 2018
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DibblyDobbler said:
^^^ These look bang on to me - nice light - setting bang on etc - very well done thumbup
Thanks very much! smile



LongQ said:
CandC said:
C&C - especially in terms of further suggestions around the diffusers - what to try next would be much appreciated.
As DD said, these look good especially for early modification attempts.

Quite a few systems come with options to re-balance light by having different output on one side compared to the other It might be interesting to try turning down the output power on one flash to induce a side light effect but still brighten shadows.

I seem to recall you mentioned using ETTL. I can understand the attraction but I often find it can produce unexpected results and manual settings are better if you can get the right. You can get more predictable control if you get enough practice, without always having to double guess what the ETTL system is going to react to.

Or it may be that I am just not conversant enough with the flash units and camera choices to get the results I expect with ETTL. I have some old Metz totally manual units that do their own in built light quenching and they seem to give more consistent results without having any idea about what is going on in the camera!
Great - thanks for this. Really helpful.

The flash units are both Canon 580EXIIs. In theory, even with using ETTL, I should be able to control the relative outputs of the 2 flashes, as they are configured as different "groups" - A and B, and the flash control should allow setting of ratios of 1-8, 1-4, 1-2, 1-1, 2-1, 4-1, 8-1, with 1/2 stop increments between. I haven't tried this yet, so will try to double-check the settings and run some tests tomorrow to see what effect it has.

I'll also, as you suggest, run some tests using the flashguns in manual mode which will definitely enable different light intensities from each side, as they definitely support manual incremental power settings. Given the fairly consistent distance to the subject, I can see the manual option producing very repeatable results with some practise.

I also agree that it would probably look better with a "main" light from one side with a weaker light from the other to fill the shadows, so whichever way this is achieved, I think this is the next step for me.

I'll see what progress I can make tomorrow.... smile


C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Thursday 30th August 2018
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LongQ said:
As DD said, these look good especially for early modification attempts.

Quite a few systems come with options to re-balance light by having different output on one side compared to the other It might be interesting to try turning down the output power on one flash to induce a side light effect but still brighten shadows.
Well, I have been playing with the flash ratios between the 2 flash guns.
I took a few photos indoors changing the settings from 4:1 to 1:4, and it did indeed cause one light to be more powerful. Making the change above had the effect of swapping the more powerful light to the other side (as expected).

I then went out to the garden to see what was crawling around out there.
All these were shot with flash set to around 4:1 ratio.
So far I've still been using ETTL metering, but will definitely experiment with manual as well. smile

The first one (of some small grapes) serves to illustrate the different lighting balance, with the main light from the right, and the left flash filling the shadows.

After the grapes there are a few flies etc.. (there are a few more photos in the FlickR Album).
I think the lighting balance has certainly helped.

I think favourite for me is the 4th one - "fly_b" - worth clicking through to the enlarged version on FlickR.
I guess I also need to start learning what the various types of flies etc.. are called - can't call them fly_b, fly_d...

Thanks LongQ for your feedback suggesting trying different lighting ratios!


grapes by conradsphotos, on Flickr


fly_d by conradsphotos, on Flickr


Bee_b by conradsphotos, on Flickr


fly_b by conradsphotos, on Flickr


fly_c by conradsphotos, on Flickr

Fallingup

1,528 posts

97 months

Thursday 30th August 2018
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Bloody good photos. I like the lighting. I take it they are hand held? I can't get my flies to stay still long enough for me to fart about with the tripod.

LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Thursday 30th August 2018
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[quote=C&C]



Thanks LongQ for your feedback suggesting trying different lighting ratios!



[/quote]

My great pleasure and many thanks for the superb shots.

Needless to say the ratio concept is not an original idea from.

Standard fare for portrait stuff and so the Elinchrom kit I have splits, iirc, 3:7 if running 2 lights of a single control unit. Might be 1:3 claimed. Can't remember but it's something like that. I normally use both control units although "normal" should probably read "rarely" followed by "use them at all". frown

I seem to recall DD having a split output set up at one point and there are a couple of more "upmarket" (if that is a reasonable description ) of the LED ring flash thing I recently purchased that have various levels of split capability.

A similar effect can be derived in some circumstances by reflectors on the opposite side of the subject but that could be more than tricky for small live subjects!

C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Friday 31st August 2018
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Fallingup said:
Bloody good photos. I like the lighting. I take it they are hand held? I can't get my flies to stay still long enough for me to fart about with the tripod.
Yes - hand held and the lighting is 2 x flash units on a bracket 1 each side of the camera. Each has a home made diffuser on it (pictures a few posts earlier in this thread). The flash are set at a 1:4 relative brightness ratio to get the lighting effect. No worries about camera shake as all the light is coming from the flash light source as shooting mostly at ISO100, f14 or f16 and 1/200th second shutter (max flash sync on manual).


LongQ said:
Needless to say the ratio concept is not an original idea from.
Yes I'm aware of the ratio thing related to portraits, but hadn't thought about applying the same principle to little creepy crawlies! smile

By the way, can anyone shed any light on what these things are? I'm assuming hoverflies generally given their behaviour, but there seem to be quite a few different types? I've found out that one of the differences between male and female is that the males tend to have larger eyes, even coming together with no gap whereas the females tend to have smaller eyes with a more obvious gap in the middle.

Having said that, these ones are very black and yellow wheres DD's (excellent) photo a few posts ago on 24th August shows one that is much more black/brown and white?



C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Friday 31st August 2018
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LongQ said:
Where this light might work really well is with old manual lenses reverse fitted to the camera body where light on the subject when stopped down is usually totally inadequate to see what one is doing. However that means I need to evolve a way to attach the ring light to the camera body end of (in my case) old Canon FD mount lenses. I have a feeling finding anything "off the shelf" might be a challenge ...
I was just reading back in the thread and was thinking.

I know it's not "off the shelf", so requires a bit of DIY, but could you get hold of an appropriate filter step up/down ring that the light will attach to?

You could also then get a rear lens cap that fits the camera end of the lens, cut out the centre area leaving only the side, and glue the step up/down ring to what's left of the lens cap?

I know that glueing stuff can be a bit of a lottery, but I recently made a magnifying loupe for large format photography (another area I'm about to have a go at when the kickstarter camera arrives), as I was a little taken aback at the price of a decent loupe for what is essentially a lens mounted on a bit of tube. In any case, I bought an old broken zoom lens from ebay for about £6, took it apart and stuck parts of the metal and plastic construction together to make a couple of loupes. The point of this ramble being that I was very impressed with the "superglue" I tried - seems to stick very well, so the same might be of use to yourself sticking a metal ring to a plastic lens cap.

It was this stuff: Everbuild HV20 Industrial HV Superglue

Seems much better/stronger than the normal Loctite Superglue, which I've found only really useful for accidentally sticking your fingers together with! smile



LongQ

13,864 posts

232 months

Friday 31st August 2018
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[quote=C&C]
LongQ said:
Where this light might work really well is with old manual lenses reverse fitted to the camera body where light on the subject when stopped down is usually totally inadequate to see what one is doing. However that means I need to evolve a way to attach the ring light to the camera body end of (in my case) old Canon FD mount lenses. I have a feeling finding anything "off the shelf" might be a challenge ...
I was just reading back in the thread and was thinking.

I know it's not "off the shelf", so requires a bit of DIY, but could you get hold of an appropriate filter step up/down ring that the light will attach to?

You could also then get a rear lens cap that fits the camera end of the lens, cut out the centre area leaving only the side, and glue the step up/down ring to what's left of the lens cap?

I know that glueing stuff can be a bit of a lottery, but I recently made a magnifying loupe for large format photography (another area I'm about to have a go at when the kickstarter camera arrives), as I was a little taken aback at the price of a decent loupe for what is essentially a lens mounted on a bit of tube. In any case, I bought an old broken zoom lens from ebay for about £6, took it apart and stuck parts of the metal and plastic construction together to make a couple of loupes. The point of this ramble being that I was very impressed with the "superglue" I tried - seems to stick very well, so the same might be of use to yourself sticking a metal ring to a plastic lens cap.

It was this stuff: Everbuild HV20 Industrial HV Superglue

Seems much better/stronger than the normal Loctite Superglue, which I've found only really useful for accidentally sticking your fingers together with! smile
Good thinking.

I have the reversing ring side of worked out to attach lens to body but the old FD lenses have mechanical bits sticking out that ideally need to be protected.

I'll give it some thought and rummage around in the "spares" boxes.

I agree about the glue.

I have a cheap solar powered LED garden light on which the plastic ground spike was snapped off when attempting a lazy lawn mower move.

Cheap as anything so no big deal but the spike looked like it might do if glued. I doesn't have a lot of stress just stuck in the ground, right?

So, to see what would happen, I glued it with one of the "special" superglues and all looked well after 24 hours so I stuck back in the hole it had come out of. No problem.

A couple of days later the heatwave broke, it rained a little and the light immediately toppled over. The glue did not like getting wet. I was not too surprised it didn't last but the speed with which it gave up and the nature of the failure were slightly unexpected. So far as I could see there was nothing on the tube about not working at all if it got damp.

The new ring light should be quite useful for outdoors BUT has absolutely no weather sealing. Not a surprise at the price but something to remember when seeking out bugs when it's not raining but leaves might still be wet and dripping.

C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Saturday 1st September 2018
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A few more from yesterday.

spider_2 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


bug_1 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

To give an idea of scale, the orange blobs below are the lumpy bits of a single blackberry. smile

bug2 by conradsphotos, on Flickr







Edited by C&C on Saturday 1st September 12:35

C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Saturday 1st September 2018
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.... and a few from this afternoon.

Back to work this week so that'll be it for a while! smile

Anyone any idea what the 2nd one is?


bug_04 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


bug_05 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


spider_05 by conradsphotos, on Flickr


DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Sunday 2nd September 2018
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nre

531 posts

269 months

Monday 3rd September 2018
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^^cracking work chaps.

Hoverfly on Astrantia by Nigel, on Flickr

breaking and entering by Nigel, on Flickr

DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Tuesday 4th September 2018
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C&C

3,281 posts

220 months

Saturday 8th September 2018
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Shield bug?

bug_06 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Sunday 9th September 2018
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CC said:
Shield bug?
yes

A couple of recent efforts:


Hoverfly by Mike Smith, on Flickr


Bee (Bombus lucorum) by Mike Smith, on Flickr

DibblyDobbler

11,257 posts

196 months

Sunday 9th September 2018
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