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Just saw your site!

very very Nice. very clean and simple! down to the core :-)

"the Balloons" is not real... but nicely shopped..
 
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Peter.
 
Well, I got my BR2-A and the 24mm should arrive tomorrow. I started messing around with the BR2-A and a 50mm f/1.8. Couldn't find many bugs today so I mainly did some flowers and stuff. However, I did try and snap a few ants. Tricky little critters, aren't they!

I'm using a D200 with a home made (milk bottle) diffuser over the popup flash. My biggest problem, especially with the ants, are shadows from the flash. Obviously, the distance between the lens axis and the flash is significant when you're that close to the subject. Any suggestions for me? Preferably ones that don't require $500 worth of additional lighting gear 'cause the wife will kill me!
 
malch said:
Well, I got my BR2-A and the 24mm should arrive tomorrow. I started
messing around with the BR2-A and a 50mm f/1.8. Couldn't find many
bugs today so I mainly did some flowers and stuff. However, I did try
and snap a few ants. Tricky little critters, aren't they!

I'm using a D200 with a home made (milk bottle) diffuser over the
popup flash. My biggest problem, especially with the ants, are
shadows from the flash. Obviously, the distance between the lens axis
and the flash is significant when you're that close to the subject.
Any suggestions for me? Preferably ones that don't require $500 worth
of additional lighting gear 'cause the wife will kill me!
Click to expand...
Well, I did think of one thing and it certainly helped to reduce the shadows but did not eliminate them. This involved a very hi-tek reflector comprising of some cooking foil supported by 3 chopsticks! It's not perfect but it certainly helps. Any other suggestions are most welcome.

Now to work on my focus skills and play around with different apertures for maximum sharpness...
 
Here's the info on my diffuser:

http://www.malch.com/nikon/diffuser.html

As for the reflector... I've broken that down. Basically, I stuck three chopsticks in the ground as stakes. The three stakes formed a triangle with 8-10 inch sides. The center of the triangle was over an ant trail in my yard. I simply wrapped some baking foil around two sides of the triangle, and pointed the camera at the third (open) side.

Here's one of the first attempts (without the reflector) and you can see the ugly shadow from the flash:



Here's another with the reflector in place. The background is rather cluttered but at least the flash shadow is a lot softer.



It's not exactly a great shot but it did confirm that a reflector of this kind could help. The low cost will keep the wife happy, at least until she discovers what I've been doing with her chopsticks ;-)

The 50mm lens doesn't really give enough magnification for an ant. But it looks like my 24mm is on the UPS truck for delivery later today. I'll probably have another go with that over the weekend.

The main thing is... I'm having fun with this ;-)
 
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