My settings were auto focus (centre point) for the EF-S 60mm F2.8 macro lens and auto ETTL for the MR-14X ring flash and provided the scene was of average tonality, these setting appeared to work reasonably well, provided I shot in Raw, allowing me to "develop" the image in CS4 Camera Raw.
Where the subject was bright and the background dark, the subject was grossly over exposed as the meter attempted to lighten the darker background tones – next time I’ll figure out how to reduce the flash output by a couple of stops.
Here’s my haul for the day – I am quite pleased with the results and our outing has given me much food for thought in terms of technique and equipment set up.
Cheers
Dennis
PS – it was a real treat shooting the static caterpillar compared to chasing busy bees; all my bee shots were blurry, a combination of OOF and subject movement.
Andrew - top shots, mate. Those native bees, particularly the in flight one, real nice. Bit of trivia - I'm sure I read somewhere that they were looking at our very own Australian native bees that you shot there for space research or something, because bees pollinate trees/plants so much better than artificial means and our natives are the most efficient at doing that of all the bee species. Think they were looking at it for long space missions, self-sustainability, growing stuff in space etc.
Dennis - lovely collection there. That ringlight gives a nice light. What might help your lighting issues, not that I can see any problems above, is to shoot the camera in Manual mode and set the exposure to maybe one stop less than ambient, and play with the E-TTL flash exposure compensation down to minus 1/3 to 2/3. It's a bit of trial and error, but that's the sort of ballpark. It was a bit hard getting the ambient light right on Sunday, because it was bright/sunny one minute, then cloud passed, then back to bright sunny. Much easier if it's constant - full sunlight or fully cloudy.
There are some lovely shots there from everyone, in particular the native bee in flight from Andrew, Dennis's wren, Troy's robber fly, and the ichneumon wasp from Steve. It's interesting to see the subtle differences in approach to what were basically the same subjects, as well as the varying emphasis on subject matter.
As we all agree, it was a good morning out, and an exercise that we look forward to repeating.
Troy, do you know if Greg is going to post here, or on POTN? I have no doubt that he will have a good selection.
Not sure if Greg is a member here or not. He'll definitely post on POTN. I'll keep an eye out, and with his permission might put them here on his behalf for completeness. I know he has been having some computer issues lately and it has thrown his processing routine out, so might be a bit of a wait for his results. Hope not, though. I too am anticipating an awesome collection. He's a cut (or 2, or 3) above me.
...
Where the subject was bright and the background dark, the subject was grossly over exposed as the meter attempted to lighten the darker background tones – next time I’ll figure out how to reduce the flash output by a couple of stops.
Here’s my haul for the day – I am quite pleased with the results and our outing has given me much food for thought in terms of technique and equipment set up.
...
Thanks Dennis, and you have a nice collection there too Dennis
In regards to the background, what do you have your ISO set at? I have mine set at 400 on the 50D and this provides light and colour to the background when your flash has lit up the foreground.
Meeting and shooting with a bunch of talented macro shooters proved to be a fabulous method of accelerating the developments of my own skills – I can definitely recommend it! It would be nice to see other such gatherings across the country from IIS photogs!
Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo
... is to shoot the camera in Manual mode and set the exposure to maybe one stop less than ambient, and play with the E-TTL flash exposure compensation down to minus 1/3 to 2/3. It's a bit of trial and error, but that's the sort of ballpark.
Thanks Troy – I’ll experiment with that approach and try various settings in our back garden to see what gives the best results.
Quote:
Originally Posted by StephenM
Nice set of Macros Dennis!
We were lucky with the weather - it would have been a wash-out this morning.
Cheers,
Stephen
Thanks Stephen!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharnbrook
There are some lovely shots there from everyone, in particular the native bee in flight from Andrew, Dennis's wren.
Thanks Mike – I was lucky that the Wren landed in the flower bed a few metres away, and stayed put sufficiently long enough for me to squeeze off 4 or 5 shots using the 70-200mm at the 200mm end. These guys do move fast!
Quote:
Originally Posted by astro_south
In regards to the background, what do you have your ISO set at? I have mine set at 400 on the 50D and this provides light and colour to the background when your flash has lit up the foreground.
Hi Andrew – I had the ISO set to Auto which mainly dials in 400ASA as the default. I did change it to 100 for the caterpillar as it was a more docile target!
I was very impressed with Adobe Camera Raw for CS4 as it allowed me to claw back almost 2 stops of over exposure on the spider. I don’t recommend doing this as a standard practice though!
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I had set the ration of Flash A:B to 1:4 to help with the modeling. When I shot some coins for practice, 1:1 lighting came out very flat, as expected.
Cheers
Dennis
Cheers
Dennis
Last edited by Dennis; 09-11-2009 at 02:25 PM.
Reason: EDIT new para added.
