| Author | Thread |
|
|
08/24/2007 05:54:16 PM · #1 |
I entered this effort for the speed free study. Taken with my 90mm macro lens nearly wide open meant I was depending on the sun to provide enough light. No tripod... and a DOF of about 2mm... :-/
Now here's my second attempt at a garden spider. Now I've learned a few tricks about off-camera flash from Strobist, and macro DOF from a thread I posted here.
In this one I'm using the 90mm macro at f/16, 1/250s shutter, off-camera remote flash to frame left, reflector to frame right. Oh... and a tripod.
Smaller aperture, off-camera flash and tripod. The magic macro ingredients. |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 05:57:18 PM · #2 |
| Definate improvement. Much more interesting as there is so much more detail visible. |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 05:59:37 PM · #3 |
big difference. you can get away with natural light if the circumstances are right...
|
|
|
|
08/24/2007 06:01:38 PM · #4 |
| What a difference! Bravo on the improvement. |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 06:51:57 PM · #5 |
I was just outside trying to do some spider shots for Fill the Frame (don't worry, I'm not going to use them). I found a truly massive garden spider, but the background was the drab gray of the house siding.
Anyway, my point is to pay attention to your background. Your spider is nicely lit in the second one, but a brighter background would take the shot to the next level. |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 06:59:07 PM · #6 |
19" of working distance??? Chicken!
 |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 07:04:14 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Anyway, my point is to pay attention to your background. Your spider is nicely lit in the second one, but a brighter background would take the shot to the next level. |
Ah, good point - thanks. And your 'nightmare' shot looks great with that orange background. There was me thinking spiders always got bad scores in challenges.
Now all I've got to do is convince my spiders to re-locate. :) |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 07:28:27 PM · #8 |
Shot with natural light...
I copied the background to a separate layer to make it all black (it was dark green in the original)
original:
 |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 07:44:43 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by jhonan:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Anyway, my point is to pay attention to your background. Your spider is nicely lit in the second one, but a brighter background would take the shot to the next level. |
Ah, good point - thanks. And your 'nightmare' shot looks great with that orange background. There was me thinking spiders always got bad scores in challenges.
Now all I've got to do is convince my spiders to re-locate. :) |
Or put a colorful posterboard behind them. They won't fly away =] |
|
|
|
08/24/2007 07:45:30 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by silverscreen:
Shot with natural light... |
Left comment.
btw, I'm going to try some natural light spider shots again. But the main problem I had at larger apertures was getting the focus right in such a shallow DOF. Especially if there was any wind or movement of the web.
I found getting the focus sharp on most of the spider's body and legs meant whacking the aperture down to f/16. This gave me some DOF to play with, but at the cost of having to use flash. I could have reduced shutter speed, but we're back to the motion-blur problem again.
Also, since reading strobist I'm addicted to f/16 and off-camera flash. |
|
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 09/11/2025 05:46:46 PM EDT.
