Macro Technique Article

Dalantech · March 8, 2007

Several people have asked me to explain how I shoot macro so I wrote an article on it: http://www.dalantech.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/83636/
C&C always welcome!

mbz · March 8, 2007

Dalantech wrote:

Several people have asked me to explain how I shoot macro so I wrote an article and posted a link to it in the Technique section: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=55828

C&C always welcome!

I'm not sure the link works.

KvPhoto · March 8, 2007

mbz wrote:

I'm not sure the link works.

You have to click on the link within the next post you get to. I printed it to read later, looks interesting!

Dalantech · March 8, 2007

KvPhoto wrote:

You have to click on the link within the next post you get to. I printed it to read later, looks interesting!

Thanks!

djames · March 8, 2007

Found your article with no problems. Well written and illustrated. Thanks a bunch.

Dalantech · March 8, 2007

djames wrote:

Found your article with no problems. Well written and illustrated. Thanks a bunch.

Thanks for the feedback!

pathfinder · March 8, 2007

In your article you said your current preferred flash set up is the Canon MR-14ex for insects. This is a true ringlight, and you demonstrated very nice shadow lighting with this light with a 4:1 ratio.

What lens are you shooting with this flash? I do not get side good lighting with shadows using this flash with a 180 macro - I think may be because the subject is too far from the front of the two light tubes in the ring flash with the longer focal length macro. Are you using a shorter focal length lens with the MR-14ex, perhaps? MP-65 perhaps?

I enjoyed your article. Interestingly, I find that I prefer the MR-24ex, because it gives better sidelighting than the MR-14ex, probably because I prefer the 180mm lenses versus the shorter macros.

I do use a diffuser over the flash heads of the MR-24ex, and the brackets from ReallyRightStuff to help hold them where I need them to be. The Canon MR-24ex lens mount does not allow enough separation of the 2 strobe heads for my needs, but the extenders from RRS help a great deal.

Both units are very helpful in macro lighting if used with some understanding of how the EOS flash system is designed.

Dalantech · March 9, 2007

pathfinder wrote:

In your article you said your current preferred flash set up is the Canon MR-14ex for insects. This is a true ringlight, and you demonstrated very nice shadow lighting with this light with a 4:1 ratio.

What lens are you shooting with this flash? I do not get side good lighting with shadows using this flash with a 180 macro - I think may be because the subject is too far from the front of the two light tubes in the ring flash with the longer focal length macro. Are you using a shorter focal length lens with the MR-14ex, perhaps? MP-65 perhaps?

I'm using Canon's 100mm, but I've known several people who shoot with your lens and the MR-14 and they are doing pretty well. Are you using ratio control? Have you tried going above 4:1, or shutting down one flash head completely? The longer distance between the front of your lens and the subject is going to be an issue. Also I always shoot with the brighter ring toward the top of the lens. I'm still trying to figure out why Canon designed both ring flashes to sit vertically instead of horizontal. The last time I looked the sun was shining down on everything for most of the day...

pathfinder wrote:

I enjoyed your article. Interestingly, I find that I prefer the MR-24ex, because it gives better sidelighting than the MR-14ex, probably because I prefer the 180mm lenses versus the shorter macros.

I do use a diffuser over the flash heads of the MR-24ex, and the brackets from ReallyRightStuff to help hold them where I need them to be. The Canon MR-24ex lens mount does not allow enough separation of the 2 strobe heads for my needs, but the extenders from RRS help a great deal.

Thanks! I shot with the MT-24 for about a year and even after all my experimenting I still don't like the quality of the light that it produces. I also have the Really Right Stuff brackets, but I really didn't see much of a difference between using them and the MT-24 lens mount when shooting with the 100mm. The only exception is shooting damselflies because I have one of the flash extenders for the RRS mount and could place one of the flash heads almost directly over the top of the critter. For dragonflies the added separation was a bad thing because I couldn't get the light to reflect back to the camera -so the Canon MT-24 lens mount worked better in that instance since I could get more detail with it.

pathfinder wrote:

Both units are very helpful in macro lighting if used with some understanding of how the EOS flash system is designed.

I think, from an exposure perspective, both flash units perform really well if you just let the camera do it's thing -and if the flash is your only light source. But once you step out of manual mode and try to use natural light for macro, which IMHO looks a lot better than just the flash, then you have to do a lot of experimenting to get the exposure right. I've been shooting with a mix of Av and Tv mode for over a year and I still don't consider myself to be an expert on lighting. Lots of practice...

I'll post an example of what I can do with the MT-24 and Sto-Fen diffusers with cotton balls stuffed in them once Smug Mug comes back online. Edit: My gallery is back, so here is the image. I was shooting on an overcast day and the light was rapidly changing. Eventually I just got frustrated and set the camera up so that the flash was my only light source. I hate black backgrounds, but it was either this or put the camera in the bag...

I kinda hinted on it in the article but I may go back and add that a lot of people think that a ring flash is going to solve all their macro lighting problems -and it just isn't true. The MT-24's light is very harsh and needs to be diffused, and the MR-14's flash heads are close to the plane of the lens so shadow control can be an issue in some situations...

pathfinder · March 9, 2007

I kinda hinted on it in the article but I may go back and add that a lot of people think that a ring flash is going to solve all their macro lighting problems -and it just isn't true. The MT-24's light is very harsh and needs to be diffused, and the MR-14's flash heads are close to the plane of the lens so shadow control can be an issue in some situations...

I absolutely agree - neither a ring flash like the MR-14ex or the twin boomed MR-24ex are the only and final lighting solutions for macro.

A large, single off camera light source, perhaps supplemented with reflector, does work very well. I use a Sun Pak FP-38 in this manner sometimes. But so will a 430ex or a 580ex or the Nikonian equivalents, if suitably diffused.

In the end, lighting, whether in the studio or in the field for macro, is still lighting, with highlights, shadows, and surrounds.

Dalantech · March 9, 2007

pathfinder wrote:

In the end, lighting, whether in the studio or in the field for macro, is still lighting, with highlights, shadows, and surrounds.

Yup, and it just takes a little practice

Skippy · March 9, 2007

Dalantech wrote:

Several people have asked me to explain how I shoot macro so I wrote an article and posted a link to it in the Technique section: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=55828

C&C always welcome!

Hi Dalantech, sorry its taken me so long to reply to your post.
I did read what you do when you do Macro, and light definatly makes a huge difference when trying to shoot Macro.

I use the 580 (Canon Flash) off the camera if I can, with a defuser on it.
I still need to figure out how to try and avoid those hot spots the flash gives off in the eyes or body of the bug ......

Good tutorial on your part Dalantech

thanks for taking the time to share your technique with us all ........ Skippy

.

Dalantech · March 10, 2007

Skippy wrote:

Hi Dalantech, sorry its taken me so long to reply to your post.
I did read what you do when you do Macro, and light definatly makes a huge difference when trying to shoot Macro.

I use the 580 (Canon Flash) off the camera if I can, with a defuser on it.
I still need to figure out how to try and avoid those hot spots the flash gives off in the eyes or body of the bug ......

Good tutorial on your part Dalantech thanks for taking the time to share your technique with us all ........ Skippy
.

Thanks for the feedback Skippy!

Tom Hicks, the macro forum moderator over at Fred Miranda, uses the 580 EX with a Lumiquest Mini Soft Box camera mounted. He primarily uses natural light with the flash just for fill and he gets excellent results! Seeing Tom's work convinced me that I needed to switch from flash only photography to using natural light as the primary light source. Once you see the difference in color and contrast it's difficult to go back to flash only shooting...

The advantage to using a ring flash, if you have to use the flash as the primary source of light, is that it's easy to create shadows (and depth) using ratio control. The difficulty with using any flash as the primary light source is getting good color and contrast -the quality if the light is very important...

Dalantech · March 11, 2007

With permission from a moderator: I've edited the first post in this thread with a direct link to the article on my web site.

http://www.dalantech.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/83636/

Macro Technique Article

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