I've updated my MT-24EX User's Guide to reflect recent changes in how I'm using and diffusing the MT-24EX.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Tao of Macro
I could also use “The Tao of Photography” as a title, since what I’m about to tell you applies to every photographic discipline. But it seems that there are more people hung up on technique in macro than in any other form of photography, and I shoot macro more than anything else. So here goes…
No one cares how you, or I, take our images. The way we shoot is irrelevant.
Really –it doesn’t matter. The average viewer neither knows, nor cares, how a photo was taken. Even if you were standing right next to them explaining everything their eyes would just glaze over, they’d nod their heads and mumble “oh” or “uh huh” –in one ear and out the other…
The only thing that does count is the final image. I hate making a reference to Ansell Adams because way too many people have taken his name in vain to justify their post processing –doing things in Photoshop that they could be doing a lot faster and better with the camera when they press the shutter release. But the idea that the process isn’t important comes from Mr. Adams, and he was right. People don’t come back to look at an image because of what you did or what you used to take the photo, they come back because there’s something about the photo that draws them in. That something is the composition and not the process…
The only time the way becomes important is when you’re trying to learn photography. When I write a tutorial on some aspect of macro I do so as if I’m speaking to another macro photographer, and not someone who knows nothing at all about the discipline. Why waste time writing to the viewer when they don’t care anyway…
So why am I making this post? When I first got into macro three years ago the conventional wisdom was that you had to use a tripod and a focusing rail to shoot macro. If you didn’t then most of the established photographers in the discipline wouldn’t take you seriously. Now it’s generally accepted that a lot of macro work can be done without a lot of gear –kind of hard to argue with the +2,000 images in my Flickr gallery and I’m just one photographer of many who shoots hand held.
Today there is still a lot of emphasis being placed on absolute image sharpness, with people claiming that you have to use small Fstops and focus stacking to get sharp images. I’m hoping that it won’t take another three years for the misconceptions about sharpness to die. If you view your photos at 100% pixels you’re going to see some softness in every photo –not just macro. But since people don’t print 100% crops, or save them to their desktop as wallpaper, evaluating a photo at 100% pixels is pointless. You could take the sharpest image ever, but if the subject is centered in the frame then it’s just one more poorly composed photo –no better than the average vacation point and shoot snapshot...
Moose Peterson once talked about the “8 second clock” –that once a person turns a page in a magazine a timer starts and there has to be something about a photo that will hold the viewer’s attention in those eight seconds. In my opinion the “Wow factor” of seeing a subject at high magnification lasts about 3 seconds no matter how sharp the image is. If you want to keep someone looking at your photos, and coming back to see them again, then the composition has to good otherwise the clock runs out and the viewer moves on…
Am I telling you not to use a tripod, or a focusing rail, or not to focus stack your images? Absolutely not! If you need to use any tool to produce the images that you want to take then so be it! But don’t get it into your head that everyone else must do the same things that you are doing. Or that the only way to get a good photo is to use a certain tool or technique. Don’t get hung up on the way an image was taken –the composition of the final image is infinitely more important…
One final word: I only use a camera, a macro lens, and a flash. I keep the gear count low because I want to let the subject dictate how I shoot it –to not lock myself into a fixed, rigid style of shooting. So the way that I shoot a subject changes depending on the conditions. If I were to fixate on a particular piece of gear or technique then I’d limit what I could photograph or when I could photograph it. Currently the only thing that stops me from shooting is rain –and if I really wanted to I could find a way around it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for my “critters wet and wild” series though…
The way that I shoot is a personal choice based on what I want to do with my photography. Is it the best way to shoot macro? Yes, but only when I’m the one holding the camera –my personal Tao of Macro. Find yours…
No one cares how you, or I, take our images. The way we shoot is irrelevant.
Really –it doesn’t matter. The average viewer neither knows, nor cares, how a photo was taken. Even if you were standing right next to them explaining everything their eyes would just glaze over, they’d nod their heads and mumble “oh” or “uh huh” –in one ear and out the other…
The only thing that does count is the final image. I hate making a reference to Ansell Adams because way too many people have taken his name in vain to justify their post processing –doing things in Photoshop that they could be doing a lot faster and better with the camera when they press the shutter release. But the idea that the process isn’t important comes from Mr. Adams, and he was right. People don’t come back to look at an image because of what you did or what you used to take the photo, they come back because there’s something about the photo that draws them in. That something is the composition and not the process…
The only time the way becomes important is when you’re trying to learn photography. When I write a tutorial on some aspect of macro I do so as if I’m speaking to another macro photographer, and not someone who knows nothing at all about the discipline. Why waste time writing to the viewer when they don’t care anyway…
So why am I making this post? When I first got into macro three years ago the conventional wisdom was that you had to use a tripod and a focusing rail to shoot macro. If you didn’t then most of the established photographers in the discipline wouldn’t take you seriously. Now it’s generally accepted that a lot of macro work can be done without a lot of gear –kind of hard to argue with the +2,000 images in my Flickr gallery and I’m just one photographer of many who shoots hand held.
Today there is still a lot of emphasis being placed on absolute image sharpness, with people claiming that you have to use small Fstops and focus stacking to get sharp images. I’m hoping that it won’t take another three years for the misconceptions about sharpness to die. If you view your photos at 100% pixels you’re going to see some softness in every photo –not just macro. But since people don’t print 100% crops, or save them to their desktop as wallpaper, evaluating a photo at 100% pixels is pointless. You could take the sharpest image ever, but if the subject is centered in the frame then it’s just one more poorly composed photo –no better than the average vacation point and shoot snapshot...
Moose Peterson once talked about the “8 second clock” –that once a person turns a page in a magazine a timer starts and there has to be something about a photo that will hold the viewer’s attention in those eight seconds. In my opinion the “Wow factor” of seeing a subject at high magnification lasts about 3 seconds no matter how sharp the image is. If you want to keep someone looking at your photos, and coming back to see them again, then the composition has to good otherwise the clock runs out and the viewer moves on…
Am I telling you not to use a tripod, or a focusing rail, or not to focus stack your images? Absolutely not! If you need to use any tool to produce the images that you want to take then so be it! But don’t get it into your head that everyone else must do the same things that you are doing. Or that the only way to get a good photo is to use a certain tool or technique. Don’t get hung up on the way an image was taken –the composition of the final image is infinitely more important…
One final word: I only use a camera, a macro lens, and a flash. I keep the gear count low because I want to let the subject dictate how I shoot it –to not lock myself into a fixed, rigid style of shooting. So the way that I shoot a subject changes depending on the conditions. If I were to fixate on a particular piece of gear or technique then I’d limit what I could photograph or when I could photograph it. Currently the only thing that stops me from shooting is rain –and if I really wanted to I could find a way around it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for my “critters wet and wild” series though…
The way that I shoot is a personal choice based on what I want to do with my photography. Is it the best way to shoot macro? Yes, but only when I’m the one holding the camera –my personal Tao of Macro. Find yours…
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Macro Techniques and Lighting
There is an excellent discussion going on over at the Juza Nature Forum about macro techniques and lighting. If you're interested in how some of us shoot macro and how we light the small world then hit that link and have a read...
Sunpak Quantaray XLF-50
I have an EF-S 60mm that I use for day trips when I don't want to carry an MPE-65mm, an MT-24EX, and spare batteries. But I wanted something better than the flash that's built into my 40D so I picked up a Sunpak Quantary XLF-50 flash. It uses 2 AA batteries and you get about 280 full power pulses out of it with a set of NiMH cells. The hot shoe rolls up into the body of the flash for storage and it sounded like a nice small flash for my day trip bag.
A few days ago I mounted it onto a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe via an off camera cord and connected it to the flash mount that comes with the MT-24EX and stuck it on the end of my MPE-65mm just to see how it would perform. I took some test shots at F11 and ISO 100 all the way out to 3x and the recycle time with a fresh pair of charged batteries was instantaneous. I haven't built any kind of diffuser for it, I just used the flip down diffusion panel that comes with the flash that I don't like (too opaque so I'm sure it's changing the temperature of the light) but the light didn't look too bad! Here's a shot at 1x, F11, and ISO 100:
Here's a similar shot with the MT-24EX:
I made some very minor changes to those images in post, but I didn't change the white balance at all. With a better diffuser I'm sure that the quality of light that's coming out of that little flash will be even better.
The really cool part about the XLF-50, other than it coming in Canon and Nikon versions (E-TTL II, and i-TTL), is the weight -only 7 ounces without batteries. It's so light even with 2 AAs that you could Gaffers tape it to the end of a lens provided you have an off camera cord. The guide number is only 66 but because it's so small and light weight it's easy to get it close to what you are shooting. The sticker shock is $99 USD + the cost of an off camera cord.
Footnote: In some markets the flash is called the Sunpak RD2000.
I've been playing around with the flash today and I've run into an irregularity that has me scratching my head: With the EF-S60mm on my 40D and the Sunpak flash mounted directly to the camera's hot shoe I can get a good exposure at F11, 1/250, and ISO 100 -cool. If I drop the Fstop down to F8, or increase the ISO to 200, I get a black frame. Either of those changes should decrease the amount of light that I need for a good exposure by a full stop and it should be easier for the flash to give me a proper exposure. Turning the flash off and then back on seems to clear the problem. I'll add more to this later as I do some more experimenting. The odd thing is that I didn't run into any issues with the flash connected to an off camera cord when I was testing it with the MPE-65mm...
Update: I connected the flash to an off camera cord and I get the same problem. Turning the flash off and then back on clears it and it starts working properly.
A few days ago I mounted it onto a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe via an off camera cord and connected it to the flash mount that comes with the MT-24EX and stuck it on the end of my MPE-65mm just to see how it would perform. I took some test shots at F11 and ISO 100 all the way out to 3x and the recycle time with a fresh pair of charged batteries was instantaneous. I haven't built any kind of diffuser for it, I just used the flip down diffusion panel that comes with the flash that I don't like (too opaque so I'm sure it's changing the temperature of the light) but the light didn't look too bad! Here's a shot at 1x, F11, and ISO 100:
Here's a similar shot with the MT-24EX:
I made some very minor changes to those images in post, but I didn't change the white balance at all. With a better diffuser I'm sure that the quality of light that's coming out of that little flash will be even better.
The really cool part about the XLF-50, other than it coming in Canon and Nikon versions (E-TTL II, and i-TTL), is the weight -only 7 ounces without batteries. It's so light even with 2 AAs that you could Gaffers tape it to the end of a lens provided you have an off camera cord. The guide number is only 66 but because it's so small and light weight it's easy to get it close to what you are shooting. The sticker shock is $99 USD + the cost of an off camera cord.
Footnote: In some markets the flash is called the Sunpak RD2000.
I've been playing around with the flash today and I've run into an irregularity that has me scratching my head: With the EF-S60mm on my 40D and the Sunpak flash mounted directly to the camera's hot shoe I can get a good exposure at F11, 1/250, and ISO 100 -cool. If I drop the Fstop down to F8, or increase the ISO to 200, I get a black frame. Either of those changes should decrease the amount of light that I need for a good exposure by a full stop and it should be easier for the flash to give me a proper exposure. Turning the flash off and then back on seems to clear the problem. I'll add more to this later as I do some more experimenting. The odd thing is that I didn't run into any issues with the flash connected to an off camera cord when I was testing it with the MPE-65mm...
Update: I connected the flash to an off camera cord and I get the same problem. Turning the flash off and then back on clears it and it starts working properly.
Nikon Stereoscope
From Engadget
"Sure, we've seen homebrew digital microscopes built out of old webcams and proper digital 'scopes with USB interfaces, but if you're really serious about your closeups, Nikon's new Fabre Photo EX system is probably calling your name. The stereoscopic microscope can be fitted to a Nikon DSLR back to capture images, with max magnification based on sensor size and crop factor -- FX backs will yield 20x zoom, while a DX back will let you keep tabs on your favorite c. elegans at 45x."
Sorry Nikonians -it's pretty much a lab table piece of kit so no MPE-65mm macro lens equivalent for you. Also what Engadget says about the crop factor changing the magnification is bogus -seems like no one gets it right. Cropping an image does not change the magnification *sigh*.
"Sure, we've seen homebrew digital microscopes built out of old webcams and proper digital 'scopes with USB interfaces, but if you're really serious about your closeups, Nikon's new Fabre Photo EX system is probably calling your name. The stereoscopic microscope can be fitted to a Nikon DSLR back to capture images, with max magnification based on sensor size and crop factor -- FX backs will yield 20x zoom, while a DX back will let you keep tabs on your favorite c. elegans at 45x."
Sorry Nikonians -it's pretty much a lab table piece of kit so no MPE-65mm macro lens equivalent for you. Also what Engadget says about the crop factor changing the magnification is bogus -seems like no one gets it right. Cropping an image does not change the magnification *sigh*.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Masters of Macro -Tom Hicks
As the moderator of the Fred Miranda Macro Forum Mr. Tom Hicks has been a huge influence on a number of macro and closeup shooters, yours truly included. I often marvel at Tom's compositions and his use of any light source and I cherry picked the best of what I saw him doing and rolled it into my own photography. Next to Mark Plonsky I consider Tom to be one of my mentors, and I probably hold the record for the most posts at Fred's that start with "Questions for Tom". He's so talented with a wide range of macro hardware and techniques that I think if there is anyone on the planet who could cut the end off of a Coke bottle and shoot macro with it he could! So it's my great pleasure to present to you No Cropping Zone's next Master of Macro Tom Hicks!
NCZ: Who influenced you early on when you first got into macro?
Tom: My greatest influence in to the world of macro was Mark Plonsky. His was the first work that exhibited the quality level that I wanted to achieve. It also amazed me that he was able to get all that detail with the simplest of tools. Mark and I try to touch base every so often, but it has been awhile . Hope all is good my friend!
NCZ: What is it about macro that has you hooked?
Tom: Macro Photography has always held my attention. It's the smallest of details in the subject that you shoot that I find so gripping, the things that we normally don't have the opportunity to see in our every day lives. Things that we all take for granted.
NCZ: What is your favorite subject to shoot and why?
Tom: Bugs are my favorite subject but more specific, Robber Flies. I never new they existed until I got into Macro. The first image I saw of one was posted on Fred Miranda.com by my European friend and photographer Monique Bogaerts. A very fine Nature photographer in her own right, and one I have the utmost respect for. With over 4000 different species of Robber Flies there is certainly no shortage of subject matter. They are the Raptors of the insect world, and upon close study, hunt their prey just like our feathered friends do.
NCZ: If you could only have one lens what would you choose and why (assuming that you also have access to any light source you want as well)?
Tom: If I could have only one lens for Macro it would be one on the 180 to 200mm range and have a tripod foot. I learned at the very beginning that working distance is your friend. I also prefer the narrower angle of view because it can help to isolate your subject from distracting background clutter and also provide you with nice bokeh.
NCZ: What lens do you recommend for someone who's just getting into macro?
Tom: For the beginner a lens in the 90mm to 100mm range would be the best choice, both from a cost stand point and a selection standpoint.
NCZ: Do you spend a lot of time in post processing or do you like to "get it right" with the camera?
Tom: I prefer to spend as little time on the computer as possible therefore I do everything I can to get it right in camera, especially the crop. All I want to have to do is sharpen the image, and maybe add some contrast. If one will slow down and pay attention to all the things needed to get it right in camera it makes the whole process go much smoother.
NCZ: Is there any advice that you’d like to pass on to the people reading this interview? Parting thoughts?
Tom: Parting thoughts. For those thinking of taking on macro photography; find someone's work that you admire and study it, get the best equipment you can afford, keep it simple, if shooting bugs then study your subject. Shoot both natural light and flash and find out which you prefer. Practice, practice, and more practice. Learn from your mistakes and spend some time figuring things out for yourself, if that fails - then ask .
NCZ: I'd like the thank Mr. Hicks for taking time out for this interview, and for putting up with all my stupid questions when I was a newbie!
NCZ: Who influenced you early on when you first got into macro?
Tom: My greatest influence in to the world of macro was Mark Plonsky. His was the first work that exhibited the quality level that I wanted to achieve. It also amazed me that he was able to get all that detail with the simplest of tools. Mark and I try to touch base every so often, but it has been awhile . Hope all is good my friend!
NCZ: What is it about macro that has you hooked?
Tom: Macro Photography has always held my attention. It's the smallest of details in the subject that you shoot that I find so gripping, the things that we normally don't have the opportunity to see in our every day lives. Things that we all take for granted.
NCZ: What is your favorite subject to shoot and why?
Tom: Bugs are my favorite subject but more specific, Robber Flies. I never new they existed until I got into Macro. The first image I saw of one was posted on Fred Miranda.com by my European friend and photographer Monique Bogaerts. A very fine Nature photographer in her own right, and one I have the utmost respect for. With over 4000 different species of Robber Flies there is certainly no shortage of subject matter. They are the Raptors of the insect world, and upon close study, hunt their prey just like our feathered friends do.
NCZ: If you could only have one lens what would you choose and why (assuming that you also have access to any light source you want as well)?
Tom: If I could have only one lens for Macro it would be one on the 180 to 200mm range and have a tripod foot. I learned at the very beginning that working distance is your friend. I also prefer the narrower angle of view because it can help to isolate your subject from distracting background clutter and also provide you with nice bokeh.
NCZ: What lens do you recommend for someone who's just getting into macro?
Tom: For the beginner a lens in the 90mm to 100mm range would be the best choice, both from a cost stand point and a selection standpoint.
NCZ: Do you spend a lot of time in post processing or do you like to "get it right" with the camera?
Tom: I prefer to spend as little time on the computer as possible therefore I do everything I can to get it right in camera, especially the crop. All I want to have to do is sharpen the image, and maybe add some contrast. If one will slow down and pay attention to all the things needed to get it right in camera it makes the whole process go much smoother.
NCZ: Is there any advice that you’d like to pass on to the people reading this interview? Parting thoughts?
Tom: Parting thoughts. For those thinking of taking on macro photography; find someone's work that you admire and study it, get the best equipment you can afford, keep it simple, if shooting bugs then study your subject. Shoot both natural light and flash and find out which you prefer. Practice, practice, and more practice. Learn from your mistakes and spend some time figuring things out for yourself, if that fails - then ask .
NCZ: I'd like the thank Mr. Hicks for taking time out for this interview, and for putting up with all my stupid questions when I was a newbie!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
40D and MT-24EX problem -I think it's fixed!
I went out into the field this afternoon with both the 40D and the 50D and I could not find any significant exposure differences shooting with the two cameras now that I've flashed the 40D's firmware to 1.1.1
Scenes that tricked the 40D's light meter also tricked the 50D, but the 40D did not fire the MT-24EX at full power and the slight over exposure would be easy to manage in post. Also if a scene caused the 40D to over expose a little using flash exposure compensation to decrease the exposure actually worked, before I upgraded the 40D's firmware changing the FEC would have little effect -the MT-24EX would just dump out full power and I'd genetically alter what I was shooting...
For now I've gone back to the 40D -the 50D's noisy sensor was driving me insane!
Scenes that tricked the 40D's light meter also tricked the 50D, but the 40D did not fire the MT-24EX at full power and the slight over exposure would be easy to manage in post. Also if a scene caused the 40D to over expose a little using flash exposure compensation to decrease the exposure actually worked, before I upgraded the 40D's firmware changing the FEC would have little effect -the MT-24EX would just dump out full power and I'd genetically alter what I was shooting...
For now I've gone back to the 40D -the 50D's noisy sensor was driving me insane!
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