If you don't care about the "how to' of this set then skip my rambling and scroll down to the photos. I saw several mating pairs a few days ago when I was photographing a mantis, but there was no way that I could get close to them. So this morning I went out early and caught one while it was still lethargic from the cold and dew. I used a small pair of scissors that I carry in my camera bag to cut its perch and then I carried it to a stone wall close by so I'd have a decent angle to shoot it from. I set it on a dead leaf, and put another dead leaf behind it that was yellow so there would be something for the light from the flash to reflect off of to keep the background from being black. E-TTL metering is sometimes odd with the Canon 40D and EF-S 60mm so after taking a couple of test frames I settled on manual mode for the flash and 1/16th power. The good news is that I got my MPE-65mm back from the Canon service center today
This is the second session with the redesigned Puffer diffuser set that I made a few days ago, the first was the mantis eating a wasp that I posted earlier. I've ordered two more Puffers so I can make another set with a different reflector material and when I do I'll document it for the blog (in case anyone else is interested).
Tech specs: Canon 40D (F13, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon EFS-60mm macro lens with 50mm of extension (about 2x) + an MT-24EX macro twin flash (manual mode 1/16 power).
