Monday morning being a holiday in QLD provided the opportunity for myself and fellow IIS member StephenM to wander along to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens for some photography - concentrating on macro photography.
Thanks Stephen for the pleasant company - it was great to finally meet you (we have been threatening to do this for some time), and I look forward to the next time.
Anyway, below are my pics from the morning....feel free to add yours Stephen
What a beautiful, sharp and detailed set of photos – they really do open up a whole new world to the viewer! I particularly like the 1st (Damselfly?), the 5th and the Bee in the 6th. The spirals on the stem in #4 and the eyes in #3 are amazing.
The excellent composition and large DOF really makes these photos pop!
Mike, the camera is a Canon 50D and the lens was the Canon 100mm f2.8. Most shots were taken at f16, shutter of 1/250 sec with a 580EXII flash through a Lumiquest softbox to soften and spread the light. The flash power was varied with the available light conditions (mostly around 1/2 power)
#2 shows promise, is sharp, but an awkward pose from your model (tachnidae fly).
Likewise, #3 is nice, but top down shots aren't generally very grabbing in macro. They are good for identifcation purposes though.
I quite like #4 - nice lighting. Is this a single shot, or stacked?
#5 - wonder dolichopididae shot - these are hard to get a decent shot of, they're very sensitive to light, and the pre-flash from the flash gun usually makes them very edgy. I've gotten a lot of frames with them jumping out of the way, a blur and only partially shown ;-) Very good detail btw, and the lighting is quite nice too.
#6 - Good Bee shot, I rarely shoot them these days, they're just too unpredictable for my nature, and I'm too impatient. A bit too centered compositionally wise - a golden rule of thumb is to always allow free space in the direction that the Insect/Arachnid is looking, and I think the image would be better rotated 90º clock wise. Other than that, really nice Bee shot.
#7 - really like this shot, plenty of good detail and a good pose too.
Looks like a good day out, I much check these gardens out myself one day.
You might want to check out one of the other members here, troy piggo - he's an excellent macro imager. Also, if you don't know him already, check out Brian Valentine's images (LordV on flickr), and alliec on photography-on-the.net/forum too. Both are awesome macro photographers. There's plenty of people's images that I could recommend, far too many to list here!
#2 shows promise, is sharp, but an awkward pose from your model (tachnidae fly).
Likewise, #3 is nice, but top down shots aren't generally very grabbing in macro. They are good for identifcation purposes though.
I quite like #4 - nice lighting. Is this a single shot, or stacked?
#5 - wonder dolichopididae shot - these are hard to get a decent shot of, they're very sensitive to light, and the pre-flash from the flash gun usually makes them very edgy. I've gotten a lot of frames with them jumping out of the way, a blur and only partially shown ;-) Very good detail btw, and the lighting is quite nice too.
#6 - Good Bee shot, I rarely shoot them these days, they're just too unpredictable for my nature, and I'm too impatient. A bit too centered compositionally wise - a golden rule of thumb is to always allow free space in the direction that the Insect/Arachnid is looking, and I think the image would be better rotated 90º clock wise. Other than that, really nice Bee shot.
#7 - really like this shot, plenty of good detail and a good pose too.
Looks like a good day out, I much check these gardens out myself one day.
You might want to check out one of the other members here, troy piggo - he's an excellent macro imager. Also, if you don't know him already, check out Brian Valentine's images (LordV on flickr), and alliec on photography-on-the.net/forum too. Both are awesome macro photographers. There's plenty of people's images that I could recommend, far too many to list here!
Dave
Hi Dave
I agree with the angles on the tachnidae, but these were pretty jumpy so I took what I could get.
Number 4 was a single shot (at f16) and was done using a 100mm. I don't have the MPE-65 so it is hard to do refractions through dew drops.
The dolichopodidae was flighty too, but they are fairly easy targets because they never bother to jump too far. In the past I have used their behaviour with the preflash to get them jumping by focusing on them then framing just above them. There is one on my Flickr site - see the macro set.
I have always struggled to get a great bee shot - they are always too busy and you can never seem to get the right angle. This is certainly one of my better ones. I did crop the image some to remove the legs of another bee that were at the top of the frame.
I am on POTN (AMD72) and have admired Brian's, Troy's, Alistair's and your shots for some time. I was the one that dragged Troy out to Leyburn too, so we have certainly met. It was Brian's shots that have made me think about the lighting of these macroshots - the way he illuminates the scene without it looking like a flash has fired, it is something I am still striving for in my shots.
Thanks for the outing on Monday, Andrew! It was good to finally meet another IIS member face-to-face!
That's a great set of images that you ended up with! Well done. I'm disappointed with most of my macro attempts - I think the breeze and lack of flash combined to work against me. I did manage to catch one of the blue damselflies, and I thought the cormorant drying its wings was worth posting.
Looking forward to the next Brisbane terrestrial imaging outing. Hopefully we can get a few more people along.
Great sets Andrew and Stephen. I'm so bummed I couldn't make it.
I can't get enough of damselflies - so delicate and colourful, but challenging to shoot with their long body and trying to keep it in the depth of field.
Really like the long-legged fly (I'm better with common names than the scientific ones). As mentioned, they are very tricky to get. You mentioned flash at 1/2 power. Were you shooting manual flash as opposed to ETTL? If that's the case, there would be no preflash so nothing to scare them before you take the shot, no?
Really nice, soft lighting on the bee shot. Harder to achieve for shiny bugs like the bluebottle.
I'll be up for a get-together with a little more warning
I was in-fact using the flash in manual mode and then dialling in the power I wanted. Is it better to use ETTL and then play with flash compensation? That is the reason why he didn't jump. Earlier on I was trying to get them jumping and was wondering why they weren't - that is obviously the reason.
I always use ETTL and vary FEC depending on the shot. Somewhere between 0 and -2/3 typically, only using it as fill flash. Try to expose manually so the background is 1 or 2 stops under.
I always use ETTL and vary FEC depending on the shot. Somewhere between 0 and -2/3 typically, only using it as fill flash. Try to expose manually so the background is 1 or 2 stops under.
That is the better way of doing it, from my experience, imho.
