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