Tom Crowning
Lives in
Germany
Joined on
Aug 24, 2000
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Comments
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| Autumn Light by F5Nikon from 2020 | Boston Sunrise Reflections by Charles Pfeil from Old tech | De Goede Reede during a september sunset. by patrickvanos from Almost Overprocessed -- An Editing Challenge | Christmas-0929 by vbuhay from Christmas. | 919 at speed. by 1AllanR from Alphabet soup II. Letter Z for “Zoom Zoom" (sports cars) |
Thanks for your nice words :)
For this photo, I've used the (self-made) twin flash setup below, but with to additional 45 degree diffusers for less harsher light (the flash units were pointed upward in this case):
http://www.tom-crowning.com/pub/pics/dpreview/Cullmann-Twin.jpg
The flashes were 2 cheap Cullman flashes I bough at ebay for 30 bucks each.
Of course dragonflies would normally just fly away when they see a setup like this, so I made this photo early in the morning when it still was too cold for them to fly away.
The flashes were connected to the camera via normal flash cables and put in manual mode to be able to adjust each one individually to compensate for the sun light which was on one side of the dragonfly. Additionally I held a simple sheet of white paper at the shadow side of the dragonfly to reduce harsh shadows.
The camera itself (a Canon EOS D60) was in manual mode, aperture set to F/19 for enough DOF and shutter speed set to 1/180 seconds, manual focus.
The lens was Tamron's SP AF 180mm F/3.5 Di, a lens I highly recommend for macro work.
I've used the Canon angle finder C, which magnifies the viewfinder by 2.5x and makes it MUCH easier to place the focus plan where I wanted it to be. With this thing you actually can SEE if the eyes of an insect are in focus or not, so the rate of miss-focused macro photos decreased extremely. Before I had this finder I used to make hundreds of photos to be sure I'd have at least a couple of good ones. With the angle finder, I make maybe a hand full of photos and KNOW that they are properly focused. Big time saver!
The unprocessed result was quite good, so I only had to slightly adjust the colors and apply some unsharp mask.
Looking back I'd say the key to photos like this 'enough and evenly distributed light'. And with a self-made setup like this, which costed (including the mount brackets) about $100, good light is affordable for veryone who's able to afford a DSLR.
Hope this helps someone,
Tom
--
Some digital cameras, some lenses, 2 eyes
http://www.tom-crowning.com/animals01/thumbs/Someone-is-watching-you.jpg
...whatever you do, do it with a smile...
Oh, my photo is featured here in the challenge forum. That's a honour for me!
Glad you like it :)
If wanted I can write a few words about the 'making of'.
Tom
--
Some digital cameras, some lenses, 2 eyes
http://www.tom-crowning.com/animals01/thumbs/Someone-is-watching-you.jpg
...whatever you do, do it with a smile...