2 Hours later
 

Rob set the starter with his Nine Frames Later thread. A great idea, so I thought I would join in.

Well its a while since I took a pic, so looking round the garden today I thought of a photo. 'Yellow' ....... a macro of a hoverfly on a yellow Dahlia.

This was certainly going to be easier said than done as there was a fair old wind into the garden and it was fairly cloudy dull.

To get in close and I was using a 105 manual focus macro lens plus PN11 tube (52.5mm extension), and fill flash with SB-80DX and diy food bowl diffuser. Given that lens to subject distance with 105mm lens and PN11 is 9inches, I had to do a lot of sitting around on the ground waiting for the hoverflys to get used to me and the camera setup before they would come near the flower. I think the big food bowl diffuser had a fair 'scare' impact as far as they were concerned too. :eek:

Dof with that lot is really pretty shallow and often by the time the subject was framed and nearly in focus it was off. Either that or just before pressing the shutter a bumble bee would land and scare the hoverfly, or a gust of wind would render the whole thing a blurr just before tripping the shutter. :(

Perseverance finally paid off and I got the shot I had in mind, so I tried a different flower for a another shot and so another 40 minutes passed before I got that one. This exercise was not so much a how many frames later job, but more a time thing, as it took nearly 2 hours to get these two shots. A fair degree of focus frustration with fast moving subjects so this was most certainly an occasion when I wished I had a fast accurate autofocus lens. :rolleyes:

Don

Don, 2 hours in engineering terms how many bacon sarnies is that ;)

great thread don......i find these very interesting, its always great to see how these great pictures were achieved. some set-up shots would be good too. keep up the good work.

Excellent write up Don, thanks.

Very interesting Don, because I've just been doing the same.

In my case it's 10 frames later, but an identical subject. The rains stopped about 15 minutes ago, so I popped out into the garden. Unfortunately almost gale force winds (slight exaggeration), but with the camera + batterypack and twinlight in one hand, with the other hand holding the flower (budlia) I managed these.

Harry

Well you are a better man than I gunga din. No2 is BRILL.

Old shakey hands here had to rely on a tripod. :rolleyes::D:D

Don

Weather permitting I will try tomorrow. :)

Don

Rob I could have eaten my way through a stack while I waited for the hovers to become accustomed to the kit and me. But Stevie was having none of it. Guess I am on a diet I know nothing about. :D:D:D

Don

Really poor light here today but I did manage a pic for you Lee.

For info, the PN11 extension tube is on a homemade foot to push the camera further back to give clearance for vertical orientation because of the D2X battery housing.

Flash is on a slightly moded Metz 45CL bracket, and the diffuser is a poly food bowl lined with scrunched kitchen foil and covered in a double layer of kitchen towel.

Don

thank you don! looks like quite a mean set-up. Love the modified bowl jobby.

Im wondering if i could achieve similar with what i have?

D90.....50mm af.....extention tubes.....sb600, only problem is i see you have a pretty good working distance. I would have to be pretty close with the 50mm, so its hard to get enough light to the subject without scaring every living thing away.

Two days later. I went out with camera on Saturday, but the weather was pretty miserable, so today it's back to hovers and butterflies on the garden.

I've been using high speed flash sync for some time now when using macro, but with a shutterspeed of 250th. This often produced "hot spots".

Today I upped the shutter speed to 1/400 with an f stop of 13, attached the 25mm extension tube.

This is the handheld result shooting into the light.

Harry

Lee,
I do not have a pop up flash on the D2X so I had to find an alternative making use of the SB80-DX. The thing to think about is due to the very short lens to subject distance high powered flash is not necessary. My bowl diffuser cuts 1 stop of light and even so I had to turn the flash down to 1/16 power.

As you have a pop up flash you have options open to you that I do not. Maybe worth your while looking at setups in an old thread I have resurected. Manual Macro on the Cheap.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=1618

Posts 28, 62, 103, and 104 show options using the pop up flash.

Post 62 shows that at very short lens to subject distances you do not need anything fancy at all. The key thing is diffusing the flash to soften shadows as much as possible. Post any questions you have in that thread and hopefully I can answer them. ;):)

Don

Another good one.
Trying to put me under pressure then Harry. :rolleyes:

I am now caught between doing stuff for the Manual Macro on the Cheap thread, or trying to catch you up. :D

No butterflys here though despte having three buddlia bushes.:(

Don

I don't know why but buddleia does seem to attract butterflies like it used to. A few years back a few local bushes were swarmed with butterflies but of late they are rarely seem on the bushes. Maybe as the bush ages ????

Maybe as the bush ages ????

Very doubtful Rob, I have several that are a few years old + 3 new ones. I see no difference in the amount of butterflies on each bush.

Butterflies around the area where I live appeared to be in serious decline, but now there are numerous. My guess is the rather severe winter delayed the breeding, hatching of the eggs.

Harry

Sunday Lunch
 

A bit of a deviation from what I was going to do, but then Harry seems to have me going. :D :D

A bit of sun today so the hovers and bumbles are active. Stevie spotted this little hover muncher while doing a bit of garden tidy up and dead heading after last nights downpour.

The set up is the same as posted in a previous thread using 105mm macro + PN11 at max magnification and manual flash at 1/8 power setting for f11. Luckily this was a new catch, so the spider was still enough for me to take 3 frames at different points of focus and then stack in Combine Z.

Don

Don, This is getting weird, I've also been shooting, or should say attempting to shoot a spider at lunch, but it's rather windy, so wasn't having much luck. Eventually I got my wife to overcome her aversion to spiders and hold a windbreak in position.

This is the result, but lunch was almost finished.

Harry

Nice one Harry.
Lucky you to be able to capture it from the top. I only ever seem to see them from underneath. Still the time is coming as we get a lot in the Autumn. Just hope for better luck and a calm day. :)

Don

105mm+PN11+1.4 converter
 

I had another go at a hover but added a 1.4 teleconverter. Still trying to catch up with Harry:).

This option is not really worth it as dof is so limited at this magnification and tc's do take away from quality.

Next step is really to increase extension with more tubes, or to use the bellows, and try focus stacking if one will stay still long enough. The big problem with bellows is that with digital they are far from ideal. Particularly if you are racking them in and out to determine a particular magnification or framing, as they act a giant dust pump as far as the sensor is concerned. The snag with moving to a shorter focal length lens is that although magnification will increase markedly, lens to subject distance will take a major hit.

Don

Well it pays to go back over old threads when you have a brain like a sieve.:rolleyes:

I have checked out my bellows but the snag is there is no link to the diaphagm and I do not have the necessary bit. That would make life off the tabletop set up a bit tricky. So I put all my auto tubes on and the fov is 10mm. Having resurrected the old 'macro on the cheap' thread I knew something was there as far as fov with reversed lenses, and sure enough, for post #85 I took pics with some reversed lens combos against a steel ruler. Link
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...?t=1618&page=9

Megga rain tomorrow I hear, so maybe Tuesday I will have a go.

Don

I have been busy on other things, but at the weekend despite the breezy conditions I had a go at taking some macro shots of bees in the garden.
Kit used was as in my previous post.

Unlike the Hoverflys were I had to sit and wait for them to get used to me and the camera, the bees took no notice. Just a matter of waiting for a bee to arrive on the selected flower. A big difference between hovers and bees though. Hovers were relatively slow in moving around a flower head, whereas the bees were really quick until they had buried their head in the stamens.

Manual focusing was the major issue in the breeze, and due to the speed of the bee moving around the frame.
With the camera on a tripod getting the bee head on a/f point to use the focus confirmation turned into a bit of wishful thinking. So despite using manual focus, and I don't think a/f screens are really suited to achieving critical manual focus without using the electronic rangefinder. This turned into an occasion where auto focus would have been of little help either. The attached shots are the best 3 of the 11 frames taken.

Probably the biggest issue is the very shallow depth of field, and due to the speed of subject movement there was no opportunity to use focus stacking.

Don