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Stand Out



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Stand out from the surroundings.

Stand out from the surroundings.
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4 Comments | Report
EmmaMTurner
 
EmmaMTurner December 05, 2016
Exquisite!
spidi1981
 
spidi1981 December 06, 2016
Outstanding! ????????????????????????
GeorgieTait
 
GeorgieTait December 13, 2016
Beautiful simplicity
landicordier
 
landicordier August 14, 2017
Wow! Gorgeous!! I am currently running a 'Ladybugs' challenge which you might be interested in...
See all

Behind The Lens

Location

To take this photo I didn't need to travel very far, just as far as my back garden. I remember the insects had been particularly active in our garden that week.

Time

It was a nice summers day in June 2016, and I took this photo in the middle of the afternoon. I was quite lucky the ladybird and stopped for a rest so I could capture the photo.

Lighting

It being a summers day the sun was my light source and very bright at this time of day with no clouds to filter it. The upside though, is that it helped to see little insects such as this one hiding amongst the leaves. Another added benefit of this little guys location was some well positioned overhanging leaves from a neighbouring plant. This provided just enough shade to filter out any harsh light from the sun.

Equipment

The camera used was a Nikon D750 with my (recently purchased at the time) Nikon AF-S VR 105mm f/2.8 Micro Lens. I absolutely love this lens, it is well built, produces great images, has good VR and autofocus. However with really close up shots you are better off using Manual focus to get exactly where you want. Fortunately I was far enough away for this shot to take advantage of the VR and Autofocus on this lens.

Inspiration

For quite some time I have been amazed by the detail fellow photographers have captured of the small world that surrounds us. Some of those photographers are right here on ViewBug. You can find inspiration and ideas in any genre of photography. The talent on the site is amazing. With this appreciation of the finer details captured in Macro Photography I wanted to try it out for myself. I think I had my macro lens for a couple of months before taking this photo. It was the only lens I used for the first 6 months of owning it. I was finally able to capture the close up shots I wanted, and I have been obsessed with mastering the art ever since.

Editing

I was lucky enough to capture this photo with a fairly good exposure. Even though there was little post processing required, I used Adobe Lightroom to increase the contrast and vibrance making the greens and reds stand out.

In my camera bag

As you can probably guess the first piece of kit (usually already attached to my Nikon D750) to go in the bag is the Nikon AF-S VR 105mm f/2.8 Micro lens. Not only can you capture the smaller things in life but it is versatile enough to capture great portraits and be used as a small telephoto lens. Next is my trusty Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8. I also have the Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8 which is a fantastic portrait lens. Last lens to go in nowadays is my recently purchased Nikon AF-S VR 16-35mm f/4. Some accessories are also thrown in to help such as my tripod, remote release, and filters.

Feedback

Macro lenses like the one I own have great image stabilisation, which came in very useful when capturing this image. Don't be afraid to close down the aperture when taking closeups as you will still be able to produce great bokeh. This image for example was taken at f/8 to capture more detail yet still produced nice out of focus areas. You can capture images like this handheld however as you may already be aware, once you get close enough to take 1:1 images it is time to get out the tripod. I recommend you use manual focus at this point too, as you may find the autofocus hunting particularly in busy areas with lots to focus on. On that note try using Live View to zoom into the subject and fine tune the focusing. One thing I have realised from taking up macro photography is that you can find interesting subjects in the most unusual places. You don't even have to go far to find it. I find that I now look at my surroundings differently. Don't just look for the obvious, take a closer look at the flowers, shrubs, trees and even the grass.

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