lighting
awild | February 2, 2010A reader asks:
I also have a MP-E lens with the MT-24EX flash unit. I was curious to know something I didnât see you mention in your recent blog post about this setup.
Could you share any technical points regarding how you achieve the visible backgrounds with that lens? In general, I get very nice shots with everything beyond the focused subject completely blacked out.
Since dark areas in photographs are the bits that aren't sending light to the camera, it follows that getting a visible backdrop means applying light behind the subject.
Earlier, I wrote that the black backdrop in insect…
sb admin | April 19, 2009Compare these two images, both of the same swarm of mating ants:
What's the difference?
The lighting, of course. In the first image I stood facing the rising sun so that the insects' translucent wings glowed, while in the second I moved to shoot the swarm from another angle, the sun hitting them from the side. A much plainer result, to my eye.
Managing light is the most important aspect of photographic composition. Entire books (as well as some fantastic blogs) have been written on the subject. I can't compete with that level of detail in a short blog post, so let me instead distill the…
awild | July 17, 2008Among the more charismatic ants I saw during my visit to South Africa was a silver Polyrhachis that seemed all too happy to pose for me. With such an unusually cooperative subject, I was able to experiment with several different arrangements of the flash heads on my MT-24EX twin flash. Compare these two shots, differing only in the placement of one of the two heads:
Polyrhachis schlueteri, St. Lucia, KZN, South Africa
The top photo is the clear winner. The MT-24EX has detachable heads, and what I did here was remove one of them and hand-hold it under the leaf, facing upward at the ant.…
awild | December 13, 2007In an earlier post about flash diffusion, I wrote about camera flash being a necessity of the trade-off between depth of field and shutter speed. Most insect photographers- myself included- work hard to improve the depth of field in our photographs, trying to bring as much of our diminutive subjects into focus as possible. This means we use a lot of flash.
However, that's not the only way to take insect photos. If one is happy to throw depth of field to the wind, one can dispense with the need for flash and produce photos from the ambient light. The effect is dramatic. One doesn't get…
awild | December 9, 2007Flash is a necessary evil in insect photography. This necessity is due to two unfortunate traits shared by most insects: small size and stubborn unwillingness to sit still for the camera. These traits confound each other in a way that renders insect photography uniquely challenging. Small subjects need to be close to the lens, placing them squarely in the zone where depth of field becomes razor-thin. Depth of field can be increased by using a small aperture, but that restricts the amount of light reaching the sensor. With so little light entering the camera, a proper exposure requires…
awild | December 2, 2007
A few months ago I started playing about with the placement of the flash unit, and almost immediately hit on a new favorite trick. When lit from behind, insects look even more zingy than usual. Their translucent bodies glow, they are ringed with little halos, and they stand out dramatically against the background. Below the fold are some samples:
Backlighting involves two major elements. The first is a relatively high-intensity light shining directly on the subject from the opposite direction of the camera. This light gives translucent insects their glow and provides the halo…