I trapped this ugly critter under a cup with a napkin, and on the napkin I put a little honey. Once the fly was busy eating I took off the cup and started shooting. To get better shadows I placed one flash head (the key) on a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe. Hand held, single frame (non-stacked).
Tech specs: Canon 40D (F11, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MPE-65mm macro lens (@4.5x) + a diffused MT-24EX.
Hi John,
Great portrait of this critter!
I haven't been here for a while.
If I understand correctly, you're using one mt-24 head as a key light, and one as a fill. To achieve this, you're placing them further apart with separate flashshoes.
Q. for the main light / fill light principle, do you vary A:B ratio's or do you just vary flash distances?
RT v Genugten wrote:
If I understand correctly, you're using one mt-24 head as a key light, and one as a fill. To achieve this, you're placing them further apart with separate flashshoes.
Nope -just thinking of them in terms of "key" and "fill" based on their position relative to the subject. The video in this post will give you an idea about how I'm using the flash heads (although I've recently redesigned the diffusers).
RT v Genugten wrote:
Q. for the main light / fill light principle, do you vary A:B ratio's or do you just vary flash distances?
Just the flash positions -due to the angle of the fill there is less light reaching the subject from it. I'm almost always cutting part of it off with the critter's perch (in this case the kitchen table and the napkin were blocking about half of it). So there's no need to vary the ratios since the scene, more often than not, will do that for me. With the "A" flash head positioned as the key and angled down just about all of its light is hitting the scene and getting reflected back into the lens.
MarkB1 wrote:
That bit of yellow is nice. Intended?
Edit: What is flash positions? Looks like maybe 11 and 2, thereabouts?
Thanks Mark
The yellow is a side benefit of having the key on the Kaiser -more reflected light off of background objects that are perpendicular to the plane of focus (parallel to the camera). Just the table clothe.
Excellent reverse engineering of the lights -11 and 2 it is
The color of the plastic that they are using in the Puffers now is not as opaque as the one's that I bought about a year ago -a lot more clear now. As a result the light quality is a lot better -I'm not even changing the white balance in post anymore.
Brian and I do the "magic angle" shots differently as far as technique goes, but in the end the effect is the same -lots of depth cause I'm placing as much of the area of acceptable focus over the curve of the critter.
Great DOF, great image. Better results than I'm getting with my 70-200 with the 500D closeup lens and tubes. Maybe it's the light? I've been using morning sun as backlight, no flash. Would I be better off with the MPE-65 or the 180?
Thanks Jeannean, mjb30, dmanky, Steve, Rick, and Hotspur
rnickl wrote:
...Seems like an awfully deep DOF at 4:1 and f/11. Is that just from the angle you were able to get on the critter?
Yes and I think that I'll write up how I do it as a tutorial, since it's a very common question (edit: done ). But in a nutshell I'm tilting the upper right corner of the camera into the frame while keeping the lower left corner locked in place for that shot.
Hotspur wrote:
...Better results than I'm getting with my 70-200 with the 500D closeup lens and tubes. Maybe it's the light? I've been using morning sun as backlight, no flash. Would I be better off with the MPE-65 or the 180?
Wow -lots of stuff there. First a 70-200mm with a 500D isn't going to give you the same image quality as a dedicated macro lens or a telephoto prime lens -zoom telephotos aren't designed to be sharp at close focus. I use to shoot closeups with the same rig, minus the tubes, and didn't like the image quality.
Light is extremely important since the quality of it will determine how the colors look, the amount of texture detail you can pick up, the contrast, etc. Light will make or break an image, and I've actually seen a lot of photos that really weren't composed well but because the light was great the flaws in the image weren't a problem...
As for the macro lens: It depends on your experience level and what you want to do. The MPE-65mm and a 180mm macro lens are completely different pieces of glass. The MPE is great for life size and higher shooting since it's razor sharp, but the learning curve is steep (the focus indicators in the view finder do not work with the MPE). The 180mm lens is OK as a closeup lens for critters that aren't too skittish, but IMHO it makes a terrible choice for life size shooting since there is actually too much working distance. To get good light from the flash you either need a huge diffuser, or you have to get the flash close to the subject. I have the MPE-65mm and the 180mm L macro and due to the way that I shoot the lenses don't cross each other in functionality, and hindsight being what it is I should have bought Canon's 300mm F4 L for closeups...
