Alien

[Michael Lloyd]

EOS1D MKIV manual
MP-E65mm handheld
Ring Flash

ISO 6400
f8.0@1/160

Spring is in the air and this female Cranefly and her mate are trying to ensure the continuation of the species. She seems to be chiding me for interrupting she and her mate's "activities".

[Julie Kenward]

Michael, for shame! She does look a bit peeved, doesn't she? The angle of this image almost makes me feel like I am staring into a mirror - very interesting! Wish you could have caught both bugs but that 65mm doesn't let you zoom out too far, does it? Still, an interesting find.

[Michael Lloyd]

:D Macro voyeurism?

Julie- The MP-E 65 is a challenge to shoot with and an even bigger challenge to shoot hand held. It is not an AF lens. In use, the photographer sets the magnification that they desire (1x - 5x) and move the lens in and out until the subject comes into focus. Couple that with razor sharp DOF (even stopped all the way down) and I think it's a miracle an image gets created with it :D I couldn't have gotten both Craneflies in the image with the MP-E but I do have a shot of another pair that I took with the 180mm macro. If it's ok I'll post it here.

[Michael Lloyd]

EOS 1D MKIV manual
EF 180mm f3.5L Macro lens handheld
Ring flash

ISO 6400
f13.0@1/200

[Vida van der Walt]

Michael, I curious about the high iso? Was it necessary even though you were using a flash? Ditto on interesting angle.

[Michael Lloyd]

I was hand holding the lens so I chose to limit my shutter speed to no lower than 1/160. Typically I stop all the way down to start and set an acceptable shutter speed. From there I'll adjust f stop if I have to. In the case of the MP-E I try to stop all the way down (f16 if I remember right). For this shot I had to compromise with f8 and ISO 6400.

Now that I've said all of that... it just occurred to me that it's entirely possible that I didn't use my flash correctly. It was set at ETTL -1/3 stop. I tend to forget to set my flash to manual. Especially if I haven't used it for some time.

S0- now I'm not sure if ISO 6400 was needed or not :) Thanks for asking. I need to experiment some.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Michael, the first image has an interesting abstract look, I keep wanting to do a 180 flip on it. The second image looks good, like the details.

[Ken Childs]

Michael, since the male is OOF and you really can't say what's going on anyway, I'd give a shot at rotating the image slightly counter-clockwise and crop in tighter with the head near the LR ROT's position. The noise becomes more obvious with this tighter crop so you'll need to run some NR. Maybe not better, but different.

I'm envious of that lens but my hands aren't all that steady and I know I'd go nuts trying to get HH shots that are in focus. :)