Maybe you could post a few images for us to see and comment on?

Gut reaction to what you've posted is that you are going overboard with the setup and making life difficult for yourself? Success with this type of shot is not about masses of flash equipment it's about knowing how the bees behave, picking the right plant subjects (with the right background) and anticipating the direction / speed of flight. At the moment there is plenty of natural light without the need for flash and you can get a very respectable shutter speed with the right aperture, plenty high enough to freeze the action. Another tip would be to go manual focus and wait for the subject to be in the right place for the right bits to be sharp. AF is almost impossible.

Here's a few I did:













Cheers
David

Great set again Derek, particularly the Bees and the Photobomber!

Regards
David

Saab driver here - you can buy 9-3's for peanuts nowadays and there is no better car for the money

I know nothing about the Saab planes though.

Cheers
David

Really excellent images, particularly for '1st use'. I would guess you will have even more delights in store with this lens. What about some wildlife shots?

Regards
David

Very accomplished, a lovely image.

Regards
David

Excellent Nigel, some really good compositions here and the colours / focus are spot-on. I must admit I rarely get the old manual focus lenses out nowadays, not sure why, but it's probably down to time and the desire to travel a bit lighter than I used to.

Must have a go with my M-50 F1.4 one day soon.

Regards
David

Magnificent stuff Derek, I know how much patience this work requires. It would be a real coup to get one facing forwards, i.e. the second image but with the mite the other way around. Keep shooting and posting these, they are great.

Regards
David

A really interesting image, expertly photographed, it caught my eye straightaway. One thing is that I find the dead butterfly strangely disconcerting amongst a collection of mainly plants, but to me its inclusion is utter brilliance as it in itself it looks almost more plant-like than the plants do!

We need to see more of this level of creativity.

Regards
David

Thanks all for the comments, I do need to do more of this stuff, I enjoy it and used to be a lot more prolific than I am recently!

I might use the spare afternoon we now have on Sunday since England went out of the World Cup!

Cheers
David

Hi everyone

I like to look at derek897's macro images as it reminds me of what I used to do a lot of. I used to spend hours in the back garden with all manner of home-made kit, shooting macro images with my K-x or my K-5. These past few years, I don't seem to have had much spare time, but decided yesterday to spend a few minutes with my K-5iis and D FA 100 F2.8 Macro WR lens. Then tonight I rolled out the best bit of kit I ever cobbled together, which is my de-glassed FA 28-80 zoom lens, with a reversed Nikkor F2.8 Enlarger Lens fixed to the front. With a powerful manual flashgun on the hotshoe and a cheap ebay Softbox attached to the flash, this is a versatile and powerful macro combination, capable of pretty extreme magnification levels.

Here are a few shots from my venture back to macro, hope you like, all comments welcomed.

1. Damselfly Eyes with Butchered Zoom + Nikkor lens, Aperture F32, Flashgun





2. Pollen Beetle on Bird's Foot Trefoil Flower with Butchered Zoom + Nikkor lens, Aperture F32, Flashgun





3. Damselfly with D FA 100 F2.8 WR Macro lens on extension tubes, Aperture F13, Flashgun





4. Marmalade Hoverfly with D FA 100 F2.8 WR Macro lens, Aperture F5, Daylight, no flash





5. Marmalade Hoverfly with D FA 100 F2.8 WR Macro lens, Aperture F5, Daylight, no flash




Cheers
David