Mixed Light Macro

(updated July 2015)

For the majority of my macro images I tend to use either full flash or natural light. Typically, I take high magnification images with the MPE-65mm macro lens using full flash and images of larger insects I take in natural light using my Sigma 150mm lens. Sometimes, however, there are advantages to using a mix of natural light and flash.

On a sunny day it can be nice to include a sunlit background or blue sky in an image as this can often  provide a welcome splash of colour. However, it's not generally a good idea for the main subject to be in sunlight as this tends to cause harsh shadows and highlights. So one solution is to expose the image for the background and to illuminate the subject using heavily diffused flash. Once the flash is effectively diffused it is able to produce very soft light on demand meaning it's possible to get the benefits of sunlight in an image (i.e. a nice background) without the costs in the form of harsh light on the subject.

To do this effectively it is best to use a short focal length macro lens as this makes it possible to get the flash head very close to the subject (see this post for tips on how to diffuse flash) which significantly helps with diffusion. Also, if possible, try to ensure that the subject is not in full sun either by moving its perch if possible or positioning yourself so that you are blocking the sun. I use either my MPE-65mm macro lens or my Canon 60mm macro lens for this style of photography as both have very short working distances. I also tend to shoot handheld by gripping the subject's perch in my left hand and then resting the lens on that same left hand so that the subject and camera/lens then move as one. However, the disadvantage of using mixed light is that, if shooting at high magnification, the partial use of flash no longer freezes movement in the same way that full flash does. So, it can be difficult to go much beyond 1x magnification if using mixed light and if shooting handheld. 

I typically use Aperture Priority at anything between f7.1 and f14 and ISO 200 or 400 and then dial in flash exposure compensation of somewhere between -0.5 and -1.5 so that the flash isn't too bright. It can take a bit of practice to get the flash exposure right. 

Here are a few examples:

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Tawny Mining Bee

(Canon 7D with MPE-65mm lens, f141 1/250, ISO 400 and diffused MT-24 flash)

A Stem Sawfly with water drop 

(Canon 60D with 60mm lens, f10, 1/250, ISO 400 and diffused MT-24 flash)

Mating Ladybirds

(Canon 60D with MPE-65mm lens, f8, 1/250, ISO 400, diffused MT-24 flash)

A juvenile Shieldbug (Picromerus bidens)

(Canon 60D with Cano 60mm lens, f7.1, 1/250, ISO 400, diffused MT-24 flash)

A Lacewing

(Canon 60D with 60mm lens, f11, 1/160, ISO 400, diffused MT-24 flash)

A Bumble Bee feeding
(Canon 60D with 60mm lens, f10, 1/250, ISO 400, diffused MT-24 flash)

Finally, another Ladybird on a Daffodil

(Canon 5D with MPE-65mm lens, f11, 1/200, ISO 400 and diffused Canon 580EXII Speedlite)

Snow and Ice

This winter had been particularly warm in the UK with little by way of snow and ice but the last week or two has seen the arrival of some cold weather. I've no idea how long this cold spell will last (is spring around the corner?) so I was keen to take advantage of these wintery conditions.

I particularly enjoy bright, frosty days as the light can transform even the most mundane of subjects. So last week I visited my local duck pond to see how the local wildfowl were faring. The pond was frozen over but the combination of the low sun and the reflection from the ice did provide some nice lighting.

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A Mallard drake on the ice

A Canada Goose

A Common Gull

The ducks also provided some in-flight opportunities.

A Mallard drake in flight

A female Mallard in flight

Away from the ducks, those who have seen my recent post on Globular Springtails will know that these tiny invertebrates can remain active in very cold conditions. So on a recent frosty day I turned over a few rocks in my garden to see if I could see any springtails. Sure enough, there they were and within a few seconds they were wandering around on the ice.

Globular Springtail on ice

Finally, after a few days of heavy frosts, last Saturday night brought a reasonably heavy snowfall to much of the UK. A walk to some nearby fields revealed a number of sets of animal tracks. I'm fairly confident that some were rabbits, and possibly hares, and those in the image below were almost certainly from a fox.

Fox prints in the snow

Globular Springtails

In order to prevent too much dust from gathering on my macro gear over the winter months I always like to have at least one session photographing springtails in my garden. Springtails are tiny invertebrates of the order Collembola (not technically insects) that come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The vast majority possess a folded spring-like apendage under their body, called the furcula, which allows them to spring some distance away if threatened. Springtails are very common - if you turn over a rock or a log in your garden the chances are you will see tiny springtails attached to it.

In my opinion, the most photogenic are the Globular Springtails which are 1-3mm in size and can easily be overlooked with the naked eye. Like all springtails, they contain an anti-freeze agent in their blood which enables them to remain active in even the coldest conditions. When magnified they can be seen to be very colourful, highly patterned and, dare I say it, actually quite cute :) I think the following are all the species Dicyrtomina ornata.


All of the following images were taken using my MPE-65mm macro lens, typically at between 3x and 5x magnification.

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This one was photographed recently on the underside of a red house brick. 

On a frosty day this springtail was found on the frozen underside of a rock and soon started wandering about when it was exposed to the daylight.

This one was under a piece of sandstone.

This springtail is grooming itself with a globule of liquid that it secreted.

I'm not quite sure what this one was doing, but I've seen several do this. It stopped and waved its front legs, possibly some sort of defence mechanism?

All in all, they're fascinating little creatures!

The Ones That Nearly Got Away...

In the summer months I tend to take lots of macro images, knowing that each phase of the 'insect season' is transient and before long the days will start shortening and it will soon be autumn. The downside of taking so many images is that the processing backlog starts to build up and I soon develop processing fatigue. As a result, after processing the best images from a photographic session I'm always keen to start processing images from the next photographic session and don't always bother to process those images that perhaps didn't grab me immediately.

At this time of the year, when photographic opportunities are less plentiful (at least for a macro photographer), I sometimes find it pays to review these 'best of the rest' images that I didn't get around to processing. Occasionally I find an image that I do quite like.

Anyway, here are a few such images. These will definitely be the last of my 2011 insect images.

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A male Banded Demoiselle Damselfly

Longhorn Beetle (Agapanthea villosoviridescens) 

A feeding Syrphus species Hoverfly

A Black Ant looking for honeydew from aphids to feed on

Common Blue Butterfly

Marmalade Hoverfly

Green Hairstreak on Bird's Foot Trefoil

Mating Syrphus species Hoverflies

I'm looking forward to spring!!

Final Fungi Images of 2011

I've taken very few images in recent weeks, a combination of the time of year (no insects!), the weather and too much work. The limited spare time I have had has been devoted to preparing stock images and continuing to go through last year's images.

In another recent post I commented on how poor last autumn was for fungi, mainly as a result of the prolonged dry weather. While I managed to find a reasonable number of Fly Agarics (see this post), other types of fungi were few and far between. In fact I only managed a couple of half decent images. See below!

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and a final Fly Agaric image for good measure:

Median Wasp Nest

Back in the summer of 2008 I found a small wasp nest in a Flowering Redcurrant bush in my garden. It was about the size of a small football and turned out to be a Median Wasp nest. While many people might be slightly alarmed at the prospect of having an active wasp nest in their garden, I was thinking more in terms of the photo opportunities it would provide! I was also assured that Median Wasp nests tend to be smaller and to hold far fewer wasps than Common Wasp nests. The kids were therefore instructed to steer well clear of the nest and I got to work observing and photographing it over the space of several weeks.

The construction of the nest was probably the most interesting stage to observe. Small teams of wasps would land on the fences in my garden (for some reason they tended to favour certain patches of fence) and they would scratch away at the wood. The act of scratching was audible from some distance away and also left lots of thin lines scratched into the fence which are still there several years on. The wasps would then fly back to the paper-like nest and add the chewed wood pulp to the outer layer of the nest.

In order to photograph this activity I decided that I wanted to use my MP-E 65mm macro lens in order to get sufficient magnification. The downside of this plan was that this lens has a maximum working distance of only a few centimetres meaning I had to get very close to the nest. Every now and again I would get slightly too close and would brush the nest with my flash diffuser. This would result in numerous wasps exiting the nest en masse in order to see off the perceived threat. It would also result in me moving in the general direction of away, quite rapidly :-)

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A Median Wasp exiting the nest

Nest building: in the image below you can see the recently chewed wood pulp that has been added to the nest

The image below shows what happened if I accidentally knocked the nest. Bear in mind my face was just a matter of centimetres from the wasps...!

Ladybirds

2011 was a particularly good year for Seven Spot Ladybirds, I don't think I've ever seen so many. But I also spotted quite a few other species of ladybird this year, including the Harlequin Ladybird. This species only arrived in the UK in 2004 but has already spread throughout much of England though it remains rare in Wales and Scotland. Unfortunately it poses a significant threat to our native ladybirds as it feeds upon small insects and eggs, including the larvae and eggs of other ladybirds. Its variable patterning can make it difficult to ID but its large size often gives it away.

Below are some examples of the various ladybirds that I photographed in 2011.

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A Harlequin Ladybird on a Hollyhock flower. This is probably the most common Harlequin colour and pattern

This one below is also a Harlequin and is another common variety

This is a Cream Spot Ladybird

while this is a Fourteen Spot Ladybird

This one isn't a great shot but is a Ten Spot Ladybird, these are very variable in terms of patterns and can be mistaken for Harlequins, by me anyway

Here's a tiny Two-Spot Ladybird, much smaller than the similarly coloured Seven Spot

and finally, a good old Seven Spot Ladybird, here eating an aphid. The Seven Spot is still our most common Ladybird, but perhaps not for much longer given the rapid spread of the Harlequin