Praying Mantis - Postcard from Brazil

     This is actually a tiny baby Praying Mantis that we found here.  It's entire body was hardly half-an-inch in length and so I it was a challenge to get a macro portrait of him, but he finally looked into the camera - not sure if he's smiling or not, though!

Just a Drop of Water . . . Macro Photography

       Macro Water Drops!

       I've wanted to tackle this type of photography for quite some time and finally got a little time for it recently.  Basically, it is a macro shot of a drop of water hitting a pool of water.  If you are satisfied with that explanation, then there is no reason to read on, just enjoy the photos.

       The Setup:  If you want the whole explanation of how I got these shots, here goes.  I set a clear pan on a piece of bright red paper and filled it with water.  Then I put another bright red paper eighteen inches above the pan and had a flash aimed at the paper from above.  Finally, I used a bright blue background with another flash aimed at it.  In this way, the water would reflect blue on the horizontal planes, and red on the vertical planes.  These are not photoshopped, except that I converted them from Raw to Jpeg with Adobe Camera Raw with high contrast and clarity, also boosting the vibrancy and saturation.  My camera sensor is needs to be cleaned so I did clone out some dust spots.  Several shots are cropped slightly to realign the center.

       Technical:  Shot with a Nikon 135mm F 2.8 with 60mm Extension Tube achieving Macro magnification.  1/200, F5.6, ISO 100.  Strobist: YN560 strobe at 1:64 power on background and a Smith Victor slave flash 1:1 on the top color paper.


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Quote of the Day:
   "No one can "get" an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process." 
       — Louis L'Amour

Macro Insects - Extension Tubes

     Because today was such a nice day, and because it's been a long time since I've shot Macro photos, I decided to get out my Extension Tubes to convert my 200mm F2.8 lens into a Macro Lens.  I use an inexpensive set of extension tubes that mounts between my camera body and the lens.
    As Wikipedia puts it, "The tube contains no optical elements; its sole purpose is to move the lens farther from the image plane. The farther away the lens is, the closer the focus, the greater the magnification . . ."   For these shots I used about 60mm of extension resulting in considerable magnification and enjoyed experimenting with the different insects I found.
    Here are several samples from my shots today.

     I had a great time and was glad I took a few minutes to deviate from my standard photography style!


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Quote of the Day:

     I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
       - Noel Coward