keithpassaur

Grass Hopper Portrait

Grass Hopper Portrait
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Canon EOS 5D Mark II

settings

Aperture 14/1 ISO 100 Shutter 1/200 Focal Length 100/1

upload_date

Aug, 2016

Views

3788

Likes

+657

Awards

Featured

Contest Finalist in Small Things In Nature Photo Contest

Peer Award

+268

Absolute Masterpiece

+72

Top Choice

+44

Superb Composition

+41

Superior Skill

+21

Magnificent Capture

+11

Outstanding Creativity

+11

All Star

Genius

Virtuoso

Emotions

Impressed

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken at Medard Park in Hillsborough County Florida.

Time

This was taken at 2:52 PM on July 17th.

Lighting

The lighting on this a created by a Canon 580 EX II Flash on a bracket with a custom diffuser. The diffuser is actually a stainless steel dog food dish with a cut out for the flash and two layers of diffusion material.

Equipment

I shot this with a Canon 5D MKII, a 100mm L series Macro Lens and a Canon 580 EX II Flash. It was shot at 1/200 of a second at f14.

Inspiration

I like taking photos of live bugs and I found this one. Each time I go out I try to get a better shot than the last time. This is really no better than my others but it is a little different.

Editing

For them most part I increase Clarity (20) and Vibrance (10) and Saturation (5) in Lightroom. I then pull up the shadows a little and decrease the highlights. At this point I open it in Nix Sharpening. I have two presets I created and I test both of them and usually one works well. I then go back to Lightroom and crop the photo.

In my camera bag

For what it is worth I don't usually use a camera bag. I have numerous ones and I have tried all kinds of styles from companies like Domke, Pelican Tamrac, LowePro etc. What I have ended up with is I store everything in an individual case. I have no particular favorite brand. I have lens cases from LowePro, Thinktank, and some Chinese ones as well. I put a tag on the lens case so I will know what is in it. I then put what I want to take in a Stanley Fatmax box. The Faxmax boxes are tool boxes with a weather proof seal. They are similar to a Pelican case only much lighter and 10 percent of the cost. They are not the quality of a Pelican case but I don't need a pressure relief valve etc. When I go out to photograph bugs I always bring a flash. Which model really depends upon the mood that I am in. I have a 270 EXII, a 580 EXII, a MT-24 and Canon's Ring Flash. There are positives and negatives for each model. I always use a flash bracket to move the flash closer to the subject. I have numerous ones but what I like the best is a Magic Arm mounted to Custom Brackets Mini CB-RC. For a camera I usually use a Canon 5D MK II. For lenses I always have a 100mm Macro in my bag and either a Canon MP-65 or an old Canon 28-80 (the 28-90 is better but mine broke) and a Novoflex reversing ring. I also have a 24-105 kit lens and a 100-400 lens a 15mm Fisheye as well in my box. I don't lug any of this around. I go to the park take a quick look around to see what is available to shoot. I then pull out what I want from the trunk of my car. If I am not shooting bugs and have to walk to some location I just pull out what I want and put it in a light weight nylon backpack. For what it is worth I attended a workshop in Maine a couple of years ago and was laughed at as I was using my daughters old purple, white and black Jansport backpack from middle school. No one would steal a bag like this and everything inside was very well protected. Second I only carried what I needed to make the shot, an extra wide angle lens, filters etc. not items that would be useless to me on that shoot. Others had numerous lenses in very well padded massive backpacks and they never used any of it yet they were lugging it down to the site.

Feedback

I have written a little manual on how to photograph live bugs. It is free and posted on www.macroshooting.com. It is called "Three days to Better Bug Photography" In a nut shell it will tell you most of what you read online about photographing live bugs is not true. Most was written by pros that have never done it, or done it well on a consistent basis. Do not read this manual and say "Oh I know that, I'm not going to do the exercise", if you do you won't get better. You really need to do the exercises to prove these things to yourself. I assure you it is not the equipment it is you. I can get a shots like this one with an old $40 lens and a reverse adapter. Or even better is a reversed Nikon Enlarger lens, killer quality but more difficult to master. What you need to understand to do this is that you need to have absolutely, positivity no camera movement at all and the camera has to be at the perfect angle. The perfect angle is really a "Magic Angle" as DOF is virtually non-existent with increased magnification. Because of the non-existent DOF you need to manually focus and put the top, bottom, left and right plane of focus on the perfect spot. This come with practice, not from auto focus. The no camera movement comes from the flash and the line "Flash stops all camera movement" is not correct at all and I can easily prove it. For consistent good shots you really need to be at about a 1/4 or less flash power.

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Grass Hopper Portrait