Macro Setup

[mmeyer]

Hey All,

Since I've been shooting and posting some macro work lately I thought I'd post some info and pics of my setup to help people understand what and how I'm using this equipment.

This is shot from tonight with my new setup

To get this shot I used the following equipment:

1. Nikon D80

2. Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro Lens

3. Nikon SB800 flash

4. Delta Flip Flash I flash bracket

One of the challenges with macro photography is light, or lack of it. When you get your lens 2-6 inches away you most likely will be blocking some or all of the light from your subject. The way I get light on the subject is to use my SB800 attached to the Delta flash bracket. I am firing the SB800 wirelessly via the Nikon Creative Lighting System with my D80. With the flash bracket I can position the flash in any number of positions to create shadows and add light where it's needed.

There are many other ways to add light using reflectors and such and I will be using those as well when I can. With this setup I can stop down my aperture to get a greater depth of field and still maintain a fairly high shutter speed so I can hand hold the camera if I need to. This will make for a dark background which at times is desirable but when I want to have a light background I'll have to use a longer shutter speed without a flash and just a small amount of fill flash. This will require the use of a tripod. When I'm out in a garden shooting flowers, I will most likely be using that method but for bugs and quick moving subjects I will be using the flash when I can.

I hope this helps to give some understanding of the process. I'm very new to this so I will be changing my methods as I go but this is what I've come up with so far.

[Steve Foss]

Mike, it looks to me like your setup and your technique are on the money. I really like your flash strength and position in the image, which allowed excellent color saturation and exposure while maintaining the mystery of shadow between the petals. Nice work!

As you experiment more with natural light and reflectors and diffusers, things will change and you'll have fun getting to know the differences those conditions cause.

While I almost always limit my macro work to natural lighting muted or intensified using diffusers and reflectors, I will on occasion use a bit of fill flash, and in those cases I use an off-camera flash cord to I can position the flash anywhere around the subject that I need.

Also part of my kit that I've found valuable is a set of extension tubes, which are simply hollow tubes that have electrical contacts so the lens and camera can continue to communicate with each other. They typically come in sets of three, with each tube being a different (mm) length, allowing you to use all three or to mix and match to get different focus distances.

With tube(s) attached, one loses the ability for far focus but gains an increased ability to place the lens closer to the subject and maintain focus capability. For example, if my macro lens will allow me to fill the frame with a pack of chewing gum before the lens gets so close that it loses focus ability, adding extension tubes will allow me to get so close to the subject that I can fill the frame with a couple letters on the pack of gum.

That's a huge boon, and since the tubes are hollow they in no way degrade image quality like teleconverters and magnifying filters do. As said, with tubes on you can't whip the camera up and take a picture of something 100 yards away, so that's a slight handicap, and you do get light falloff with tubes to some degree so you occasionally have to adjust for that.

My full set of Kenko tubes cost about $150.

[JR777]

I like the rose Mike. Great job