Great shot and idea, nicely done.

Thank you Don.

A couple macros from earlier this week, tweaking the set-up a little bit so it is a touch more portable, determined to get up to the local tarn for some Dragonflies or Damselflies.

These were all done with the 100mm macro, 31mm extension tube, yougnuo flash, beer cans with tissue for diffusion.







Any and all comments welcome

Nice set really impressed with the horse detail in 3 & 4 and the rider in 4 almost looks like he is waiting to get spat off

No issues with mine, but only 2.5k on the shutter thus far

A smashing set, all this macro and talk of the butchered zoom has got me looking at trying this idea as well now, a real shame the forum won't allow us to see the full detail on these as they do look stunning as is.

Smashing sets, have you worked out your magnification with this set-up? Love the eye detail on the moth/butterfly no.12 anyway.

A nice selection, a real shame there is no sound with them

I have found that the close in macro work using natural light is very tricky, I have tried and failed miserably (still hasn't stopped me trying though). Also very difficult to appreciate macro on here when reducing picture size, as alot of an image at this scale is in the detail.

For the first couple damselflies the shallow DOF for me hasn't worked, as you mentioned it can work but the transition from behind the head (thorax?) to the abdomen the colouring starts leading back but then because of their shape there is a dead space jumping into blur, no wing at all, if it could have been possible it would I think have been a great candidate for the head and eye only shot so the body/abdomen would not have been visible.

I like the zebra spider, possibly the second more as I think the eyes have just been nailed that little bit better, but they are tricky blighters to catch, with prey is probably an advantage due to slowing them down a bit, also on a leaf is nice I only every find these on walls.

The profile shots of damsels and bee are better for me, the "in distressed damsel" I think suits the shallow DOF with the damaged abdomen the fact the wings seem to blend out from there for me works, but the female common blue I reckon needed a narrower aperture, maybe not all the way to f16 but definitely a touch to try and have the whole profile in focus. The bee again DOF too narrow (may be the reduction for forum) but the looks like it is just outside of the range as the hairs coming from the eye and pollen there look okay.

The launchpad fly I like the composition and the colours (for a plain ugly fly), the detail on the leaf and the background darkening off has worked well. The golden (dung fly) afraid this has suffered because of the limited DOF, I think that the wing detail could've made this one as the wing colours with detail could've made this stand out, as they are a colourful fly.

But I appreciate how tricky alot of these shots are, I am still waiting to get a keeper of a Damsel or Dragon fly from my local tarn, hopefully when I get back in the next couple of weeks, also like that they are all in the field, whilst I can imagine it is easier if they are chilled for me alot of the joy is knowing they have been caught in their natural environment along with the associated skills to do that.

Any further news on this Chris?