This is a as shot of a turtle’s leg. Don’t forget patterns and textures can make a subject for a shot too.
Patterns and Texture
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Tag Archives: close-up
B&W or Color?
Which do you prefer for this shot. I’ve also considered cropping vertically. Don’t be shy post your thoughts below.
Just Hanging Around
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Dark Field Photography
I’ve been experimenting with dark field close-up photography. This is a fern in nature and I didn’t use a black background.
The image was created by holding my flash behind the frond so it’s backlit. This helps to bring out the texture in the leaf and its adds contrast.
For the exposure you have base it on the sunny 16 rule. At f/16 on a sunny day at ISO 100 the correct exposure can be obtained by using 1/100th second for a shutter speed. However, in this case I didn’t want the correct exposure in the background so I set the shutter speed to 1/200 second. If you take a test shot without the flash you should get a totally black image. Next turn on your flash and back light the subject.
You can trigger your flash with a cable, with the camera’s IR system or a radio trigger like a pocket wizard. I used the Canon IR system with E-TTL metering because it was simpler than having to meter every shot myself for manual mode. I did use –2/3 ev because the light was a little hot at 0 ev.
Close-up of the Lady Slipper
I use the Canon 70-200 mm f/2.8 with the 500D diopter for my macro photography. This shot was hand held and yes I had to lay in the the dirt to get the shot.
Pink Lady Slipper
The natural history of this flower is interesting it needs a fungus and bees to be able to reproduce. More info. here and here.
Close-Up of an Inch Worm
Here is a good example of how little depth of field you can have when doing close-up work. I managed to just get the head of the worm in focus which has to be a mm or 2.
Flowers
These two flower shots are close-up shots because the flowers are only about the size of a quarter. I used a Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 lens with the 500D diopter on a tripod.
Caught
My Venus fly trap digesting a fly.
Good Catch