MarkBarbieri
Semi-retired
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
My wife and I visited my son at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (where he is working as a summer intern). They have an amazing butterfly center there. I thought I'd share a few of the shots I got. They were all take with a Canon 5DM4, 100mm macro (the old pre-IS version), and the new Yongnuo 24EX flash system. It isn't nearly as good as the Canon 24EX flashes, but it is 1/5 the price and is good enough for me.
When taking these shots, I used E-TTL and let the flash and camera automatically manage the exposure. I used the aperture to vary the DOF. Remember that with macro work, DOF is very, very shallow, so I often had really small apertures. I used the combination of ISO and shutter speed to control how much ambient light I wanted to include. A low ISO and/or fast shutter speed resulted in a dark background.
You can see all of the shots here.
This was at f/16, 1/125s, and ISO 1600. Without the flash, it would have been totally dark. Using this technique can get rid of distracting backgrounds and is popular with macro work. I'm not really a fan of the look.
This one has clear wings. Really cool. I think it is a crossbreed between a normal one and a totally clear one. I didn't see any totally clear ones, but maybe that's because they're invisible.
This shot was at f/8. The background is totally blurred out because I'm focused so close. As you can see f/8 wasn't enough to get the antennae in focus.
This was one taken with extension tubes between the camera and the lens. They let you focus closer than normal. You can use them with non-macro lenses to get macro shots or with macro lenses to get closer than normal.
When taking these shots, I used E-TTL and let the flash and camera automatically manage the exposure. I used the aperture to vary the DOF. Remember that with macro work, DOF is very, very shallow, so I often had really small apertures. I used the combination of ISO and shutter speed to control how much ambient light I wanted to include. A low ISO and/or fast shutter speed resulted in a dark background.
You can see all of the shots here.
This was at f/16, 1/125s, and ISO 1600. Without the flash, it would have been totally dark. Using this technique can get rid of distracting backgrounds and is popular with macro work. I'm not really a fan of the look.
This one has clear wings. Really cool. I think it is a crossbreed between a normal one and a totally clear one. I didn't see any totally clear ones, but maybe that's because they're invisible.
This shot was at f/8. The background is totally blurred out because I'm focused so close. As you can see f/8 wasn't enough to get the antennae in focus.
This was one taken with extension tubes between the camera and the lens. They let you focus closer than normal. You can use them with non-macro lenses to get macro shots or with macro lenses to get closer than normal.