Well done. This sure makes a scary picture of an otherwise harmless insect. Are the patterns in the highlights on his eyes from the texture of the eye itself or a scanning artifact?
Well done. This sure makes a scary picture of an otherwise harmless insect. Are the patterns in the highlights on his eyes from the texture of the eye itself or a scanning artifact?
No, they are patterns of all the facets to the grasshopper's eyes. You can see two compound (large) eyes and three simple (small eyes in the center and inside both compound eyes) eyes in this photo.
Heh, this is something I could never use film for. Insect macrophotography is a spray-and-pray digital-only pursuit for me, even with on-camera lighting and automatic exposure control. Congrats on making a technically great and pleasing image.
This is really quite excellent. I've never had good luck shooting macro with film, so I like others use digital there. You make me want to try again with film. Thank you for the inspiration. I do have one question though, you say this is at f8 on a reversed Nikon lens. How did you focus??? That had to be pretty dim!
This is really quite excellent. I've never had good luck shooting macro with film, so I like others use digital there. You make me want to try again with film. Thank you for the inspiration. I do have one question though, you say this is at f8 on a reversed Nikon lens. How did you focus??? That had to be pretty dim!
I have a Nikon BR-6 that I attach to the bayonet of the 50mm. It serves a couple of functions. One, it maintains full aperture focusing and two, the front has 52mm screw threads on it so I can attach filters, a ring flash, etc.
When you are ready to take the image, you depress a cable release that is attached to the BR-6, which closes down the aperture. I then used another cable release on the back of the F4S to trip the shutter. Nikon does make a double cable release for this setup but it is terribly expensive for what it is.
The BR-6 is not cheap either (I got mine used on Fleabay for about $75) but it does make macrophotography life considerably easier. The depth of field on this shot was probably no more than a millimeter, as you can see from the very narrow band of sharp focus on the leaf. So if I focused on the specular highlights on the right eye at full aperture, then had to close the lens down to taking aperture, it is entirely possible I would shift my macro rig just enough to throw my focus point way off. This way I close down the aperture (using the lock on my cable release), then tripped the shutter with a second cable release on the back of the F4S.
Heh, this is something I could never use film for. Insect macrophotography is a spray-and-pray digital-only pursuit for me, even with on-camera lighting and automatic exposure control. Congrats on making a technically great and pleasing image.
It is not nearly as hard as you think. All you need is a flash meter and make a few calculations. And of course bracket +/- 1 stop.
I shot this image in a light tent, with a 100WS flash directly above and one coming from the right. I took a meter reading with my Sekonic L-358 flashmeter and got the best overall exposure. Since the lens was reversed, that did not affect my esposure, but bellows extension would. The bellows extension was around 65mm. I did the calcs and found out that I had to open up approximately 2 stops to properly expose the film.