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Norm Dulak
07-19-2013, 09:14 AM
Nikon D300 w/Nikkor 105mm micro lens, tripod mounted.
ISO 400; f/32, 1/60 sec.
The insect was placed on a translucent white acrylic sheet and illuminated from above by twin wireless SB-R200 speedlights and by another from below the sheet.
Minor standard CS6 adjustments were made.

Because the insect was quite active initially, it was covered with the lid of a petrie dish on the acrylic sheet for a period of time and allowed to run around. Eventually the insect stopped moving, the lid was lifted and the image was captured.

All comments are welcome.

Norm

Mitch Haimov
07-19-2013, 09:04 PM
Another nice one, Norm. Looks like it's got half moon mirrors along its side. Did you get one from the front--looks like it has an interesting "face."

christopher galeski
07-20-2013, 10:06 AM
nice capture of a interesting bug.

Jerry van Dijk
07-20-2013, 02:38 PM
You're getting pretty good results with this setup, Norm! Details and colors captured are very good. You may need to play around with the flashes a bit, this bug seems a bit darker on top than on the lower side. The even light is always a strong point of these lightbox photos.

Jonathan Ashton
07-20-2013, 03:15 PM
Nicely illuminated image, DOF very good.
I must admit I have some slight reservations over the technique, I don't think for a minute you would deliberately be inconsiderate towards the critter but did he stop because he was tired or exhausted or simply becasue he had no where to go? I wonder how you determine what is a reasonable length of time for him to be running around an in inverted petri dish?

Norm Dulak
07-20-2013, 03:37 PM
Nicely illuminated image, DOF very good.
I must admit I have some slight reservations over the technique, I don't think for a minute you would deliberately be inconsiderate towards the critter but did he stop because he was tired or exhausted or simply becasue he had no where to go? I wonder how you determine what is a reasonable length of time for him to be running around an in inverted petri dish?

Jon, you raise some interesting questions. And I really don't know the answers. Maybe this approach for active insects is from their perspective not good.

In the past, I've always tried to capture images of all subjects in their natural environment. But I was sufficiently intrigued by Steve's light box methods to try this. In any event, my subject was returned to its natural environment after I photographed it, even though it is a very destructive pest in my wife's vegetable garden! Hopefully, its behavior and the remainder of its life were not substantially altered because of my experience with it. And hopefully I released it sufficiently far away from the garden that it did not return to it! :t3

Anyway, thanks for raising the issue.

Norm

Norm Dulak
07-20-2013, 03:40 PM
Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll work on even illumination. And I do have a frontal view of this interesting insect that I may post in the future.