keithpassaur

Wendy the Wasp

Wendy the Wasp
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Canon EOS 5D Mark II

settings

Aperture 13/1 ISO 200 Shutter 1/160 Focal Length 38/1

upload_date

Nov, 2016

Views

1566

Likes

+434

Awards

Featured

Winner in Black & White Bugs Photo Challenge

Peer Award

+211

Absolute Masterpiece

+33

Top Choice

+30

Superb Composition

+18

Magnificent Capture

+11

Superior Skill

Outstanding Creativity

All Star

Genius

Virtuoso

Emotions

Impressed

Upset

Top Ranks

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

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Top 30 rank week 1

Congratulations, your job was winner of the BLACK & WHITE BUGS PHOTO CHALLENGE contest.

Thank you

PRO

This is exactly what I want to learn. This is my favorite type of photography. I got a Nikon D5300 for Christmas. Could you give me some recommendations on how to achieve these types of shots??

Yes, go to www.macroshooting.com there is a thing there called 3 days to better bug photography.

PRO+

Just a marvelous photo

Thank you

Platinum

your work is amazing!!! All of it!

takes intimacy with the subject to another level. by virtue that she's called wendy, lol!

PRO+

Fabulous capture. Your macro work truly inspires me Keith.

Awesome detail...

Thank you

PRO+

Wow! this looks like some science fiction being! Awesome macro...really well done! :)

PRO+

wow! just wow!

Awesome photograph. Congratulations

Excellent !!!!

Now that is absolutely above and beyond ANYTHING I have seen in the macro world!! Wow, just wow! Excellent 😮

Thank you for your kind words

See all

Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

Black and White Fly - Hand held focus stack of 5 images

Behind The Lens

Location

This was taken on a wasp's nest located on my living room window. (Naturally the outside) I'm into macro photography and when they started to build it I was like wow, perfect subjects just go outside 15 feet from the front door.

Time

This was taken at around 8 in the morning.

Lighting

For lighting I used a Canon 270 EX II flash on a bracket with a homemade diffuser. This is the most important part of a photograph like this, get your flash close to the subject for the shortest flash duration time.

Equipment

This was shot with a Canon 5D MK II, a Canon 28-90mm lens reversed with a Meike MK-C-UP adapter, a Canon 270 EX II flash on a bracket.

Inspiration

I was putting on a little macro photography workshop and I wanted samples from different magnification methods, such as tubes, bellows, reversed lens, adopters etc. Instead of searching for the photos and not being sure because it won't be in the Metadata of the photo I went out with different setups and shot photos of the wasps on my windows and I took some notes. For what it is worth you can get excellent results regardless of what method you use. This just won and it is an old lens you can pick up for $35 used. This is one of if not the most fun methods to use as you can go from about 3:1 magnification and also zoom out and take in something almost a foot in width.

Editing

Mine is always about the same, I review in Canon's Digital Photo Professional (this is what comes with the camera) which allows me to quickly reject any bad images. I then run a program that renames them the date followed by the time in milliseconds. The folder they are placed in is named the date and these are added to the catalog in Lightroom. So anytime I want to find a file I can go to the creation time and locate the original raw file. Well at least it has worked out so far. I then have a user preset that I use the adds a little sharpening, lens correction and sets the Clarity, Vibrancy and Saturation levels. I adjust the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks manually. Then in some cases I bring the photo into NIK' s Sharpening Pro, afterwards I crop the image and in this case converted it to black and white.

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 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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Wendy the Wasp

Wendy the Wasp

Behind The Lens

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