Tuesday, July 7, 2009

My Quest for Wide-Angled Macro Continues

I am continuing to refine my wide-angled macro technique. Some of you may be saying "enough of the wide-angled posts already!" Fair enough, I suppose, but if I'm going to air my dirty laundry –AKA the good, the bad and the ugly images that come from trying something new– you may just have to bear with me for a little longer as a small favor. I'm hoping that by revealing the process that I'm working through, you may be inspired to push your own personal boundaries as well. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this developing series.

I think that I'm beginning to attain a better balance between the foreground and background lighting with these. I'm also getting better at adjusting the lighting to alter mood as shown in the Veronica's Looking Glass (purple flowers). One thing that is faulty with this round of images is that (you might've noticed) the subjects have a bit of an outline on them. This is because I'm using a rear-curtain flash setting (a good thing) but the shutter-speed / flash duration are slightly under & over what they should be, ideally. Otherwise, things are looking better by my estimation. Now if I can just get these subjects to stay still...plants included!





5 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm definitely not tired of them yet!

I love the idea of macro photography, but being able to incorporate the environment into the picture isn't something a lot of people think to do (or maybe, are able to do? or do well?)

It's an interesting series, and I always like to see other photographers' 'experiments'

Ed Cooley said...

Excellent creativity Clay.

niall Benvie said...

Hi Clay

That must be the Tarantula you mentioned the other night. It's a lovely pic -as you know! I think you are on to something with the lighting too - and the softer the flash the better. I'm attracted to this technique although my wide angle zoom don't focus close enough. I wonder if the Zeiss 25mm might be the (technical) answer?

Best

Niall

Clay Bolt said...

Thanks for all of the encouraging words. Glad to hear that there is some merit resulting from the work.

Caroline, I'm glad that you picked up on the importance of showing a bit of the environment with Macro. I believe it really helps to tell more of a story with these small subjects.

Niall, Yep that's the one that was continuously trying to crawl onto my face (I was only about 4 inches away)! I'm using a 18-35mm zoom lens with a small extension tube which is the key that allows me to get closer. Good suggestion about the Zeiss–I'll have to look into that.

Unknown said...

Love the mygalomorph spider! I've never seen a big one like that in the wild.