How I shoot MACRO - Patient to wait

love to do night macro but some of the insect may not active or sleeping in the night and it is good to shoot them while sleeping as in daylight you may not possible to shoot it .. e.g. bee, the bee use to flying around non-stop and not easy to have a capture of it in the day light but at night it will sleeping as


- it seldom move, or we can move it any location/direction to capture a beautiful sleeping style

but I getting bore after a while looking at this beautiful bee sleeping .. so I decide to mark the location and go back in the early morning (just before the bee wake up) , what I going todo
- wake up early (~6-630am)
- go back to the mark location
- use tripod to aiming or pre-focus to the bee
- wait ................................. it may wake up 1-1.5hr later :D so patient is important here
- the moment it wake up, it will stay still for ~5-30s depend on luck
- do not touch it to make it wake up this will make it flew off within 2-5s after we touch it

then with all the efforts above ...





or recently

They are back !!!

Cuckoo Bee  - Thyreus sp

found back those bee use to stay near my In-law garden ... and most of them back !!! for what happen previously for this "small jungle" pls refer
http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2010/06/news-another-sad-news.html


but too bad for Wee & Tan who missed this as we only found them 2nd day ....

I also found Owl-fly which is 1st time for me to see it in wild and it is so near to me ....

New Found - Green Metallic Bee

I am currently at US and manage to meet up a US MACRO gang (amazing, photography actually link us up thousands mile away ....) - Peter @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/galadial/ and not only share me a wonderful place - Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary

a place where can easily found birds, bugs .. and it is bright compare.. and I managed to clear one of my wish list ...green bee or Augochlorini ....



this is not a touch one even it keep moving and make us not easy to compose out shot ....

more shot from US trip of 2010 can view through here

How I shoot MACRO - Add on Dews ....

I always admire LordV or Brian to shoot dews ... or look at his dews work @http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/sets/72057594101162264/

but I don;t have patient just do dews on un-move plant.. flowers ... so I always want to do it on bug/insect ....

last year, with help of my gang Kurt/Orionmystery (another great macro shooter I know...) I managed to shoot 1st bug with dews diffraction with Kurt help (he hold the flowers behind the bug for me and I shoot it with high magnification (~2-3:1) so I got


and I am waiting for raining season after the shot to make more dews shot ... after months wait, finally bugs are back to my in law garden and rain is almost drop down every evening ... so I managed to have many chance to shoot what I wish to do ....

and below are some pictures I shoot for last 2 weeks

1. a bore one without bug ...


2. found a ladybird in the morning and a large dew on it's body and I make shot with right hand press shutter (camera mount on tripod) and the other hand hold the flower behind the ladybird


3. and the ladybird moving around so I still able to shoot few more shots before it flew off


4. one week later ... heavy rain while I go back to my in law house . before the rain stop , I went out to try my luck and luck is with me ...found few bee and one with dewsssssss, I use one hand wto press shutter while the camera mount on tripod .. then the other hand hold the flower


*** all pictures focus stacked with few pictures .. no add on , with max ~10% crop ...

News - the Long Tongued Blue Banded Bee is back ...

after missing for few months.. they are back can easily find them (5-6 of them) just outside my in -law garden ... and they sleep late this time (730pm still awake :D )
and I have no choice to go back later to shoot picture of this fast moving bee

and I have few different BG , may share in my flickr later but I prefer the black BG and another head shot ...

1.


or larger view @ http://www.liewwkphoto.com/image-viewer.htm?Fgallery2-15

2. a head shot

How I shoot MACRO - Composition, angle ...

think I never share this beside keep telling my gang, how I shoot MACRO (my version of composition shot)

It may different or same with other people view but I am sure I am still shoot based on these rules up to today :D

1. story/actions
every photographer is always look for story for their picture and me too .. but if I only base on this then I may have <5% of my total shot up to today ... as bug/wild life is not just controllable by us and we just don't know when it will eat, fly ... communicate .. stand at right position .

But this is a primary point I look for my pictures

2. beauty of the bug
this applied on majority of my pictures. As I always try to show the beauty of the insect/wild life in best angle that I can approach and again this is not controllable by us. but I am just trying my best

e.g.

angle 1


angle 2


angle 3


for above pictures
- I rarely shoot @angle 1 & 2 except rare bug and the only possible angle
- to shoot this "long-legged" weevil, I will prefer shoot from top as this will show how the leg length compare to the it's body
- but then this is very subjective, some people will feel the beauty of the bugs may in different angle .. so .. Just shoot it, if you think... it is good/best angle for you to see the object .....


3. standard shot
I call this standard shot or science class picture, as this will show the view where help you to recognize of the object. But I will normally shoot this as I want to ID and sick of bug/insects pictures collection :D

e.g.


4. close-up
some people call magnification shot, this is another favor from me as this show something that human eye cannot see

e.g.

face of the little jumping spider


face of the same weevil



- without close-up we may not imagine how it look like
- may look easier, but it is not easy for me as for the magnification 3-5:1. We need really close to the bug and limit but very thin DOF and with difficult control of lighting
- someone will say, just crop it lah, why shoot with closer and difficult lighting ... but then this is different people preference... I am ok with crop :D .. but for me closeup no crop more than 10% for sure else I will go re-shoot

there are few more general thing that I look at which apply for all above
i. green/clean Background
- yeah this is important to have but not a must for me ..
e.g.
a.


b.



the picture "a" meet action/story shot but I just can't control the Background as it may scare the spider to leave the prey away ... and I decide to capture one shot then follow but the other with BG control (how I control the BG had been discuss before @http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2009/02/macro-pp2-how-i-control-background.html ... but then "a" still my preference compare to "b" which have clean and green background

ii. more Depth of Field
It is definitely a main concern of MACRO shooter where the DOF is always not enough (and what DOF macro shooter looking at was discuss @http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-depth-of-field-dof-you-have-while.html

sometime less dof mean OOF for the picture, so we need minimum DOF on the "eye" to consider the focus picture .... but as long as it focus on the important part of the object. then DOF will not be a must archive point for my case

... it's always good to look close 3 - Cuckoo Bee ...

this bee just too active to capture before they rest/sleep ... and good time to get them rest/sleep is evening - morning .. normally will rest on stick .... around the garden

- 5dm2 + canon MPE-65@~3:1, mt24, handheld
- non crop ...



and here is the full view of it


the only active shot of it
- 5dm2 + sigma150 + 1.4tc + monopod


and closest I get is 10:1 but think is not a good close-up