Back to the beginning of A Short Course in Macro Photography Illumination Magnification Focus Insectography Home
Some would say that it all comes down to this: How big is it? Oh, sure, snicker if you will, but isn't this the whole point...to make that little bug as big as can possibly be?
To get really close, you can start with a macro lens. Any modern macro lens will bring you to 1:1 reproduction size, or “lifesize,” as it is termed. As outlined here, there are other ways to achieve high magnification without use of an actual macro lens. One downside of using the tools addressed in this section is that a macro lens can focus from infinity down to 1:1 in just a second or two. If you use an alternate means of getting macro reproduction, then you are locked into the limited magnification variability of the diopter / tube / bellows / reversing ring.
So...getting really big. My goal for this image was to maximize the reproduction capabilities of my equipment.
For this shot, which is uncropped, I used three extension tubes in combination with a 1.4x teleconverter (providing even greater magnification). Technical specifics: Camera: Nikon D70 Lens: Sigma 105 f2.8 macro (set at f16) focused at minimum distance, coupled to 72mm of Kenko extension, coupled to a 1.4 converter, then body. Light was provided by an sb-800 thru a Lumiquest lightbox at 12 o'clock position, and a slaved old flash at half-power was fired thru a red gel to provide a bit of color on the fill-light.
The fly was gently chilled in the fridge in a Tupperware container for about 25 minutes (never use the freezer--the insect will be killed if frozen). The slightly chilled fly was placed on a piece of elevated plate glass (from a picture frame) for the shot. The glass allowed the red-gel flash to be positioned so that its light illuminated the side and below. I got off nine shots before my model flew away. Full-frame with this setup is about 8mm, yielding a reproduction size of about 3x. Depth of field is kind of nano, in the neighborhood of half a millimeter. In the image, note how little is actually in focus. At this magnification, I tripod, and likely a focus rail, are necessary.
For the record, I almost never chill my subjects, and I have shot thousands of images captured without any assistance from Kenmore. Just bugs in the wild, very alive and in their natural state. However, for this image, some assistance was necessary due to the challenges of the assignment.
Next: OK, so what equipment do I need??
Copyright 2006 Eric Delmar