I love Steve Maxson's use of a white box to photograph insects and so I copied the technique. For my first attempt I found this Assassin Bug while folding the laundry fresh from drying outdoors. This insect is very hardy and his refrigerator time barely slowed him down. For my white box I used a cardboard box lined with computer paper. I put the insect on a loose piece of paper so I could rotate the paper to help align the insect along the plane of the camera. However I discovered I need to add a high intensity light so I can see what I am doing ! I have a macro twin light setup and I used that for external light.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 100 macro, tripod, 1/125, f7.1, ISO 800, flash +1 compensation, manual exposure, manual focus via Live View
Shane, since this insect just would not stand perfectly still, I didn't want to go below 1/125. That kept me from going higher than f7.1 for more DOF. Next time I will certainly try a variety of settings, including adjusting the flash output. This is a learning process for me. Plus, I just could not keep this insect in the box!! The eye does blend so I'll check out more sharpening.
Nice first attempt with the light box, Nancy, and an interesting subject. Good sharpness where you need it. More DOF would be great, but works just fine as is. And wishing for more DOF comes with the insect closeup territory. Another thing you could try to help the eye pop is to lighten it a bit. If I were to pick nits (unlike your subject, not true bugs), I would wish for some separation between the near antenna and the legs. Have fun experimenting!
Great try Nancy, you can afford to use a smaller aperture if the flash is the primary light source, effectively it increases your shutter speed, ie. the image would not be noticable unless the flash was used and as the peak light intensity is so relatively brief you get a sharp image. I would suggest try a few practice images at ISO 100/200 at f11 and see if you get a reasonable exposure and take it from there.
Thank you Jonathan for your suggestions. I'll start with those settings next time. Thank you Mitch & Gary. I agree about that leg and antennae position. I must train my subjects better !
Hi Nancy. It's great to see you trying out the lightbox and you're off to a good start! Good suggestions above by Mitch and Jon. Sometimes something as simple as an antenna position can make or break an image. My routine settings are f/16, 1/160, and ISO 100. I then adjust the flash power (Manual mode) to suite the situation. I typically want the whites to be close to the right edge of the histogram - though you have a fair amount of latitude here to correct in your RAW conversion. I don't worry about shutter speed as the flash provides all the light and should stop camera and subject motion. Keep experimenting and have fun with it!
Copy cat
! I have a macro twin light setup and I used that for external light.
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