Posted by Paul Rycraft on January 18, 2007 at 6:02 PM
Macro technique advice required please
This is an old shot of a jumping spider taken on a stone well at a pond we have at work. Judging by the size of the chelicerae I think it must have been a male.
best of a poor bunch, clearly needs much smaller aperture, and better hand hold technique (or at least a beanbag). I can get access to a ringflash but previous attempts usually result in black backgrounds, does anyone have any pointers for good flash technique for macro work.
Taken with a D70
105 Nikkor macro lens
iso 200
f5
1/1000
cheers
Paul
Posted by Mark sellings on January 19, 2007 at 5:09 AM
as mentioned there are some things about technique etc but I think this looks great as something out of a science fiction movie - looks like some kind of alien/spaceship thing - the eyes really make the picture - the composition is great as well
You have mentioned the main nits i.e DoF, but I think this is a fine image, I like the composition and the almost monochromatic tones of the rock and bg help your subject to stand out...
I tend to be married to a tripod for close up/macro work, although handholding has its advantages using a tripod makes you think about framing etc. that is the reason I went for the 1320 style tripod and not the more popular 1325, I can still swap for a column or no column....
You definately need to stop down more, on a D70 size sensor you should be safe to about f11 without the effects of diffraction rearing their ugly head. As for flash, I tend to avoid ringflash and only use my Canon unit on very rare occasions in the field as a fill, it gets used more in the studio particularly when I have a specimen that cannot be lit conventionally, i.e when the specimen is in a cavity, I prefer a standard flash unit with a softbox diffuser normally mounted of a Kirk macro flash bracket, this allows me to position the light where it is going to be more effective.
You should be able to balance the flash illumination with the available light to give a natural looking bg, if I have to rely only on flash illumination then a second or third gun can be used to illuminate the bg but that starts to become combersome and unwieldy.
HTH
Phil
Posted by Phil Shaw on January 19, 2007 at 5:56 AM
Black backgrounds are the result of using the flash as the main lighting source for the subject and a consequence of the "inverse square law" which relates the lighting intensity with distance from the source. In macro photography if you are working with a subject at say 250mm and have set up the flash so get a correct exposure at this distance, at 250mm behind the subject, the light intensity will have dropped to 25 percent of that falling on the subject - this is a 2-stop difference in exposure value. At 500mm behind the subject, in this example, the exposure value will 4-stops lower than the exposure for the subject, and this is effectively black.
To get lit backgrounds, you either have to use the flash as fill, or light the background separately if you are using the flash as main light.
The secret of effective flash photography is determining the flash exposure value for the subject and then deciding how you want to portray the subject in relation to the ambient light (background) exposure value.
Posted by Philip Kirkham on January 19, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Hello Paul
I certainly can't add any useful flash information as per the 2 Phils above, however, I do like this image, and think that in this case the use of greater DOF would not have improved the overall image much anyway. It works well as is IMHO.
Best wishes
Phil
Posted by Paul Rycraft on January 19, 2007 at 12:55 PM
Gentlemen,
Thanks for taking the time with the explanations, I appreciate the help,and the positive comments on the image.
Regards
Paul
Discussion
5 repliesThis is an old shot of a jumping spider taken on a stone well at a pond we have at work. Judging by the size of the chelicerae I think it must have been a male.
best of a poor bunch, clearly needs much smaller aperture, and better hand hold technique (or at least a beanbag). I can get access to a ringflash but previous attempts usually result in black backgrounds, does anyone have any pointers for good flash technique for macro work.
Taken with a D70
105 Nikkor macro lens
iso 200
f5
1/1000
cheers
Paul
Mark
You have mentioned the main nits i.e DoF, but I think this is a fine image, I like the composition and the almost monochromatic tones of the rock and bg help your subject to stand out...
I tend to be married to a tripod for close up/macro work, although handholding has its advantages using a tripod makes you think about framing etc. that is the reason I went for the 1320 style tripod and not the more popular 1325, I can still swap for a column or no column....
You definately need to stop down more, on a D70 size sensor you should be safe to about f11 without the effects of diffraction rearing their ugly head. As for flash, I tend to avoid ringflash and only use my Canon unit on very rare occasions in the field as a fill, it gets used more in the studio particularly when I have a specimen that cannot be lit conventionally, i.e when the specimen is in a cavity, I prefer a standard flash unit with a softbox diffuser normally mounted of a Kirk macro flash bracket, this allows me to position the light where it is going to be more effective.
You should be able to balance the flash illumination with the available light to give a natural looking bg, if I have to rely only on flash illumination then a second or third gun can be used to illuminate the bg but that starts to become combersome and unwieldy.
HTH
Phil
To get lit backgrounds, you either have to use the flash as fill, or light the background separately if you are using the flash as main light.
The secret of effective flash photography is determining the flash exposure value for the subject and then deciding how you want to portray the subject in relation to the ambient light (background) exposure value.
I certainly can't add any useful flash information as per the 2 Phils above, however, I do like this image, and think that in this case the use of greater DOF would not have improved the overall image much anyway. It works well as is IMHO.
Best wishes
Phil
Thanks for taking the time with the explanations, I appreciate the help,and the positive comments on the image.
Regards
Paul