keithpassaur

Full Body of Fred the Fly

Stack of 57 images

Stack of 57 images
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Canon EOS 5D Mark II

settings

Aperture f/8 ISO 100 Shutter 1/160 Focal Length 65/1

upload_date

Nov, 2017

Views

2129

Likes

+337

Awards

Contest Finalist in Experimental Photography Project

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Peer Award

+716

Top Choice

+21

Absolute Masterpiece

+18

Outstanding Creativity

+14

Magnificent Capture

Superb Composition

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo on a table top in my house.

Time

I think it was in the afternoon, it is not important as photos like this can be taken at any time.

Lighting

Lighting was done with two small flashes. In shooting photos like this you are better off with small Speedlights as opposed to a large ones or studio flashes. What happens is the larger ones at lower power are not as consistent. Feel free to disagree but then go out and shoot a stack of 4-5 hundred images and have a few off a stop or more. It will happen, well at least it has happened to me on numerous occasions. The key is to use the lower power of the flash which relates to a shorter flash duration. this will remove camera shake. If you think you can just mount it on a tripod and shoot with the mirror locked up, good luck. When you start shooing at higher magnifications just placing your hand gently on the table can cause enough movement to ruin a shot. What you have to do is setup everything and then wait for it to settle, then take the shot.

Equipment

I used a Canon 5D MK II for this shot with a Canon MPE-65 lens at about 2-3X. I moved the camera with a StackShot which is an automated focusing rail that moves in um. For what it is worth a spider's silk is between 3-8 ums. So the precision is there with the StackShot for photos like this and higher magnificiaon, but you could also use a very high quality focusing rail at 2-3X. It would just be a pain to do. The attractive part of the StackShot is that you can program it to move a certain distance and with camera lenses (not microscope objectives) at a give magnification and aperture DOF is always the same. Now there is a competitor to Stackshot called WeMacro Rail that is considerably less money and it has great reviews from what I have seen.

Inspiration

I was bored and it was something to do.

Editing

I use Canon's software to sharpen the image a little and adjust up to about a stop of light. From there I export it as an uncompressed tiff to maintain all the data in the file. Once exported I open the images in Helicon Focus and stack them. Rarely do I have to edit them in Helicon Focus, either they align or they don't and when shooting on a table top they are almost always aligned; however, there may be a difference in exposure because of the flash. Once stacked I export the file as a tiff to be imported into Lightroom. The fly was mounted on a pin and when in Lightroom I stitch to Photoshop to remove the pin and perhaps change canvas size. Once done I make some final adjustments (rotate, crop sharpen etc) in Lightroom.

In my camera bag

I am a little different I suppose as I don't have a normal camera bag. I decide what I am going to shoot and then I bring what I need. If I am going to shoot birds I bring a telephoto, buildings my tilt shift or a wide angle to normal lens. For macro shooting like this I have numerous options and what I like the best is a reversed Canon 28-90 lens with a Novoflex EOS-Retro adapter. It may not be as sharp as some other options but it is so close very few people could tell. It is the most fun as you can shoot up to about 3x and subjects as big as a foot.

Feedback

It took me a long time to master macro photography because most of what is online is not true it, was written by people who read somewhere this is how it is done but they never did it themselves or they got one lucky shot. You can get shots as good as this using an old bellows and enlarger lens. Both are available for less than $100. It is just a matter of doing some research on your options for magnification and learning some techniques. Macro photography is a case where money makes it easier but not necessary any better.

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keithpassaur

keithpassaur

Full Body of Fred the Fly

Stack of 57 images

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow keithpassaur

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