This time I asked my wife to help me shoot a short video on baiting honeybees with corn syrup and using the left hand brace technique to control the movement in the scene. Something that I didn't mention in the video is that I take a lot of images to get the one shot that I'm looking for -just too many variables to deal with. The depth is thin, moving the area of acceptable focus just a fraction of a millimeter can change the composition, and bees are constantly moving their antennas. Frequently I'll nail every aspect of a shot only to have to deleted it because the bee moved it's antenna right as I was pressing the shutter and it's obscuring an important feature like the eye or the proboscis.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
First Magazine Publishing
Range Magazine published four of my fly photos along with an article that I co-wrote with Tom Stack (he manages my portfolio). There are also a couple of text books that might have my images in them in the near future, but nothing that I can mention specifically yet.
I'm also working on the next "Macro Moment" video and hopefully do the filming for it this weekend. Stay tuned :)
I'm also working on the next "Macro Moment" video and hopefully do the filming for it this weekend. Stay tuned :)
Monday, August 24, 2009
Freckles II Deconstruction
My mother in law planted pumpkins again this year and fortunately I managed to get some compositions out of my head from shooting honeybees in these flowers a few years ago. In 2007 I was shooting them when they stopped to clean themselves -that pumpkin pollen irritates them pretty bad! But since they were just sitting on a leaf without much to keep them busy they wouldn't let me get very close, and I was limited by the angles that I could shoot them.
The trick was to put down some corn syrup on a flower petal and wait for the girls to find it and start feeding. I placed my left index finger directly under the bee (with the petal between us) and put my thumb on top. Then I curled the petal around my index finger to get it out of the way so I could shoot at a low angle and not get the petal in the foreground (it would have been out of focus and distracting). All that was left was to place the lens on my left hand to keep it steady, and since I was holding onto the flower I had a lot of control over the composition. I wanted the line from the eye to the end of the proboscus in focus, so I just went looking for a "magic" angle" that would make the most of the curve. It sounds complicated, but with practice it's actually pretty easy to do.
Images like this one pretty much put the last nail into the "you have to freeze them" coffin...
For those of you curious about honeybees: The pitch of their wings gets higher as they get more excited. So if you listen to the sound they make you can get a feel for when it's time to back off and leave them alone. Several times I did just that, especially when they started getting in my face instead of flying off. I was dealing with some of the same workers over the last four days, and after a while they learned that I had the corn syrup so it took less and less time for them to find it and start feeding. It also took less time for them to start competing with each other and to start getting way too close to me
This frame was taken close to 3x at F13. I was adjusting the mag based on the framing that I wanted so I wasn't at even mag markers on the MPE-65mm. I also took this shot with the camera held horizontally, but I framed it knowing that I'd turn the photo 90 degrees in post -easier than trying to hold the rig vertically.
The trick was to put down some corn syrup on a flower petal and wait for the girls to find it and start feeding. I placed my left index finger directly under the bee (with the petal between us) and put my thumb on top. Then I curled the petal around my index finger to get it out of the way so I could shoot at a low angle and not get the petal in the foreground (it would have been out of focus and distracting). All that was left was to place the lens on my left hand to keep it steady, and since I was holding onto the flower I had a lot of control over the composition. I wanted the line from the eye to the end of the proboscus in focus, so I just went looking for a "magic" angle" that would make the most of the curve. It sounds complicated, but with practice it's actually pretty easy to do.
Images like this one pretty much put the last nail into the "you have to freeze them" coffin...
For those of you curious about honeybees: The pitch of their wings gets higher as they get more excited. So if you listen to the sound they make you can get a feel for when it's time to back off and leave them alone. Several times I did just that, especially when they started getting in my face instead of flying off. I was dealing with some of the same workers over the last four days, and after a while they learned that I had the corn syrup so it took less and less time for them to find it and start feeding. It also took less time for them to start competing with each other and to start getting way too close to me
This frame was taken close to 3x at F13. I was adjusting the mag based on the framing that I wanted so I wasn't at even mag markers on the MPE-65mm. I also took this shot with the camera held horizontally, but I framed it knowing that I'd turn the photo 90 degrees in post -easier than trying to hold the rig vertically.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Licking the Bowl Deconstruction
Here's another frame of a feeding honeybee that I slowed down by injecting corn syrup into a Lavender flower with a syringe. I knew that the exposure on this setup was going to be a problem -too much contrast between the clear syrup (nothing but a specular highlight zone for the flash) and the flash falloff since there's nothing close in the background to reflect the light from the flash back into the camera. So I set the FEC to -1 2/3 to avoid having to go into manual mode since I was shooting from a lot of different angles and changing the magnification. Hind site being what it is I should have set the flash to manual mode and left the magnification at 3x (where I ended up taking the most frames anyway) -it would have been easier...
The hard part about this scene isn't keeping the critter and the camera steady: She's really into that corn syrup so grabbing the Lavender stem with my left index finger and thumb was easy, and once I had a hold on the flower all I had to do was rest the lens on that same hand and slide ti to get the focus and composition that I wanted. What's tough about a shot like this one is remembering that the area of acceptable focus is parallel to the sensor and thin, so I've got to get it as flat against the bee as I can to make the most of what little depth there is at 3x and F13. For a shot like this one the eyes have to be in focus but so does the entire length of the proboscis. Also anything that's flat, or nearly flat, in the foreground also has to be in focus or your eye will go right to it. Forget focus stacking -although I did slow the honeybee down by giving her something to eat she's still in motion, and I'm actually using my finger and thumb to rotate the flower as she's feeding to keep her looking into the lens and to give me a "magic angle" that will make the most of the depth. It would take some tricky "shotgun photography" to give me more than one frame of the exact same scene and I'd rather spend my time practicing composition and getting the most of a single frame.
At times she was actually standing on my fingers...
The hard part about this scene isn't keeping the critter and the camera steady: She's really into that corn syrup so grabbing the Lavender stem with my left index finger and thumb was easy, and once I had a hold on the flower all I had to do was rest the lens on that same hand and slide ti to get the focus and composition that I wanted. What's tough about a shot like this one is remembering that the area of acceptable focus is parallel to the sensor and thin, so I've got to get it as flat against the bee as I can to make the most of what little depth there is at 3x and F13. For a shot like this one the eyes have to be in focus but so does the entire length of the proboscis. Also anything that's flat, or nearly flat, in the foreground also has to be in focus or your eye will go right to it. Forget focus stacking -although I did slow the honeybee down by giving her something to eat she's still in motion, and I'm actually using my finger and thumb to rotate the flower as she's feeding to keep her looking into the lens and to give me a "magic angle" that will make the most of the depth. It would take some tricky "shotgun photography" to give me more than one frame of the exact same scene and I'd rather spend my time practicing composition and getting the most of a single frame.
At times she was actually standing on my fingers...
Friday, July 10, 2009
Macro Moment #1
First off I need to apologize for the quality of this video! I'm not use to using a camera phone, but since the iPhone 3GS has a camera capable of video, and since I have it with me all the time, I thought I'd start documenting some of the techniques I use to photograph the critters. This morning at the lake seemed like a perfect opportunity -I just need to get better at using the video camera ;)
Here's the video of a sleeping solitary bee:
Here's one of the shots of that same bee:
Here's the video of a sleeping solitary bee:
Here's one of the shots of that same bee:
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Feeding Honeybee IV Deconstruction
I don't always get a chance to shoot the critters when they are cold and sleeping, and during the heat of the day they won't let me get close unless I give them a reason to slow down. So I bought a hypodermic syringe at a pharmacy and used it to inject corn syrup deep inside a Lavender flower. The bee was so intent on eating that it let me grab onto the flower just below it so I could use the Left Hand Brace Technique to take the shot.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Canon's 270 EX
Back in the early summer of 07 I was out at Lago d'Averno (my favorite dragonfly hunting ground) shooting in +30C degree heat (high 80s to low 90s F for the metric impaired) with a Canon 20D, a 100mm macro lens + tubes, and an MT-24EX all supported on a BushHawk shoulder mount. A lot of weight to put on a camera strap, especially one that I wasn't checking on a regular basis to make sure it was still secure. I stopped to wipe the sweat from my face and let the rig dangle by the strap and as my luck would have it gravity got the best of my rig -it landed flat against the side of the BushHawk with an ugly thud...
When I first picked up my gear and brushed the dust off of it the MT-24EX didn't work. The force of the impact drove the batteries so hard against the internal contacts in the battery compartment they were flattened and no longer touching the batteries. The hot shoe on the 20D also took a lot of damage and eventually failed a few months later.
When I got home I bent the battery contacts out and managed to get the MT-24EX working again, but since that fall two years ago I knew that I was using that flash on borrowed time. About two weeks ago the "A" flash head started to intermittently fail, but because the light looked good when it did work I knew the controller was going bad. Weather due to the gravity test two years ago or shooting in wet early morning conditions this year I don't know, but the end result was the same -I couldn't rely on it anymore.
Since it failed I've been experimenting with mounting a Canon 270EX on the MT-24EX's flash mount, but with limited success. The image included with this post is a test shot, and it's pretty dark. Since I took that shot I've redesigned the flash mount so I could get a lower angle between the flash and the subject, but it's just not the same as having a dual light source. If I put the 270EX on a flash bracket, with a bigger diffuser, then the light would be a lot more even and the shadows less severe. But I don't think it's going to work mounted right at the end of my MPE-65mm -I can't make the diffuser larger without bumping the subject with it at high magnification.
So at this point my options are pretty limited: Either use the MR-14EX that's been collecting dust since I picked up the MT-24EX, use a 580EX II on a flash flash bracket (not practical for my style of shooting), or buy a new MT-24EX. That last option presents a problem: Canon has updated every flash in their lineup except the macro flashes. I've got no proof, but it just makes sense that they're going to come out with a new macro flash. I'd hate to shell out +600 USD just to see Canon announce a new unit sometime between now and next fall...
So I'm going to see what I can do with the MR-14EX, and as long as the natural light is good shoot more natural light closeups. Although I don't get as much feedback on my closeup photography as I do the high mag shots I like shooting closeups in natural light more than shooting macro.
Time to break out the gaffers tape, channel Martha Stewart, and see what I can do to reduce those half moon specular highlights that haunt the MR-14EX :)
For those of you wondering about the performance of the 270EX it's actually pretty good as far as the flash recycle time goes: Almost instantaneous all the way out to 5x and F10. The E-TTL metering with it is also a lot more accurate than the MT-24EX. So I can't discount it completely as a potential light source for macro -I just can't get it to work in the way that I want to use it...
When I first picked up my gear and brushed the dust off of it the MT-24EX didn't work. The force of the impact drove the batteries so hard against the internal contacts in the battery compartment they were flattened and no longer touching the batteries. The hot shoe on the 20D also took a lot of damage and eventually failed a few months later.
When I got home I bent the battery contacts out and managed to get the MT-24EX working again, but since that fall two years ago I knew that I was using that flash on borrowed time. About two weeks ago the "A" flash head started to intermittently fail, but because the light looked good when it did work I knew the controller was going bad. Weather due to the gravity test two years ago or shooting in wet early morning conditions this year I don't know, but the end result was the same -I couldn't rely on it anymore.
Since it failed I've been experimenting with mounting a Canon 270EX on the MT-24EX's flash mount, but with limited success. The image included with this post is a test shot, and it's pretty dark. Since I took that shot I've redesigned the flash mount so I could get a lower angle between the flash and the subject, but it's just not the same as having a dual light source. If I put the 270EX on a flash bracket, with a bigger diffuser, then the light would be a lot more even and the shadows less severe. But I don't think it's going to work mounted right at the end of my MPE-65mm -I can't make the diffuser larger without bumping the subject with it at high magnification.
So at this point my options are pretty limited: Either use the MR-14EX that's been collecting dust since I picked up the MT-24EX, use a 580EX II on a flash flash bracket (not practical for my style of shooting), or buy a new MT-24EX. That last option presents a problem: Canon has updated every flash in their lineup except the macro flashes. I've got no proof, but it just makes sense that they're going to come out with a new macro flash. I'd hate to shell out +600 USD just to see Canon announce a new unit sometime between now and next fall...
So I'm going to see what I can do with the MR-14EX, and as long as the natural light is good shoot more natural light closeups. Although I don't get as much feedback on my closeup photography as I do the high mag shots I like shooting closeups in natural light more than shooting macro.
Time to break out the gaffers tape, channel Martha Stewart, and see what I can do to reduce those half moon specular highlights that haunt the MR-14EX :)
For those of you wondering about the performance of the 270EX it's actually pretty good as far as the flash recycle time goes: Almost instantaneous all the way out to 5x and F10. The E-TTL metering with it is also a lot more accurate than the MT-24EX. So I can't discount it completely as a potential light source for macro -I just can't get it to work in the way that I want to use it...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)