Or ‘The poor woman’s guide to higher magnification’
One day I saw this crab spider on a flower. Then I saw my grandfather’s old magnifying glass lying there, looking at me. “Hmm… I wonder…”
I got my camera, held the magnifying glass in front of the lens and took a picture. The one you see above. Thus began my love for macro photography.
Around that time I also got serious about my insect book. But living on one salary, with three kids, this stay-at-home mom could not afford to invest in expensive camera equipment. So I had to make do with my standard 18-55mm kit lens and… several hacks.
To ensure the magnifying glass sat dead straight over the lens, I mounted it in a Marmite lid (with the centre cut out). Usually I simply held it by hand, like so. When I needed my left hand for something else, I attached it to the kit lens with a wide elastic band. The auto-focus works just fine through this extra monocle.
Many photos in the book were taken with my ‘Marmite lid lens’, like this one. This cost me much good-natured teasing at my local camera club.
At some point I ‘upgraded’ my equipment. An old Canon tele-lens, which I had bought secondhand in Singapore ten years before, had turned irreparably moldy. I took it apart brutally, extracted the thick double-lens from its belly, and washed off the offending fungus. This felt more legitimate: at least I was now using bits of photographic equipment!
Eventually I found (for ZAR100 at an SPCA shop!) a working Canon 100mm macro lens. I felt very grown-up now, like a serious photographer… but was it worth the expense? Judge for yourselves.
The equipment: (left) magnifying glass set in Marmite lid; (middle) the innards of a Canon tele-zoom lens; (right) a Canon 100mm macro lens.
The results… can you tell which ‘lens’ took which photo? (And no, they are not in the same order.) Well, can you?
The exciting thing was, now I could get even higher magnification by holding one ‘hand-held’ lens in front of the macro lens – or even both together!
Caterpillar eggs taken (a) with the 100mm macro lens only, (b) plus the ‘canon innards’, (c) plus the ‘Marmite lid lens’ on top of that!
I also tried the reverse lens method, another cheap route to macro photography. You can buy a reversing ring, but there are DIY websites that show you how to hack one. I happened to have a spare lens foot (from the butchered tele-lens) and I had an old screw-on UV filter. Epoxy them together, and there you have it.
Now the kit lens can be mounted onto the camera backward, giving it extreme magnifying powers, but also extremely low depth of field. It kind of works, but you can see that even these thrips nymphs below – minute as they are – are only partially in focus.
Thrips are tiny insects that suck plant juice. These are thrip babies! They leave behind black spots (their excreta seen here as brown droplets) and they cause a ‘silvering’ on leaves, where the waxy cuticle has separated from the green epidermis. They can also spread plant diseases.
Insect macro photography (especially of active creatures in shady locations) usually requires a flash. The on-board flash usually works fine. But sometimes, when you get really close to the subject, the rim of the lens gets in the way and casts a shadow. An external flash however overshoots the subject, since you cannot point it down.
Solution: a DIY reflector. Take external flash and find a box-like object that fits snugly over it (I cut up a kids’ juice bottle). Cut a slot into the box at an angle and a hole for the light to shine through, then slide a pocket mirror into the slot and secure it somehow (I used cable ties).
The mirror reflects the beam of light down onto the subject which can be extremely close to the lens.
When shooting insects in nature, one faces a number of challenges. One challenge is the eternal trade-off between motion, light and depth of field. Another challenge is focusing on a small moving target.
When the camera is very close to the subject, as in macro photography, the depth of field can shrink to a mm or less, and it becomes difficult to get the whole insect, or even part of the insect, in focus. Here are several solutions:
1: Set the F-stop as high as possible: nothing less than 11, better nearer 20, ideally more – depending on other factors, like the size of the insects and available light.
2. To get more of the insect in focus, align it side-on.
3. Line up all the important bits so they are the same distance from the lens, and allow ‘extraneous’ bits get out of focus.
In this (braconid?) wasp the feelers, eyes and sting are all essential features. Lined up exactly at 90 degrees to the lens, they all end up in focus. The feet are less important.
4. Stacking: take two (or more) photos of the insect in the same position, but focus at different levels, then copy the sharp bits from one photo to the other. This usually only works when the insects is sitting still.
1+2=3
A form of ‘stacking’ can even be done on two completely different images:
The firefly’s face was pretty in (1), but its bum was better in (2). So I copied and pasted the rotated light organ from (2) onto the behind of (1). Cheating? Yeah. I guess so. A little.
Motion
Macro photography magnifies movements: whether it is the insect that moves, or a breeze blowing the leaf it is sitting on, or your hand that shakes because you are squatting in an awkward position…
1. Speed: turn up the speed, ideally to over twice the focal length of your lens (i.e. a 100mm macro needs at least 1/200th of a second, ideally more).
This photo, taken with a 100mm lens, at 1/200s, shows different levels of movement: the flower is stationary, the beetle wiggling slightly, the butterfly in full motion.
2. Fridge: some people like to refrigerate insects to slow them down temporarily. I don’t find this method very useful. One, where are you going to find a fridge when you are out in the bush? Two, how long do you leave it in for? Three, they end up in unnatural, dead-looking postures. Four, they warm up real fast, so by the time you have ‘arranged’ their limbs to look more ‘natural’, they are waking up. Having said that, I have used this method successfully on one or two occasions.
By the time I had taken this beetle from the fridge in the kitchen out into the garden and arranged him comfortably on a leaf in the sun, I had a few seconds left before it woke up and scuttled away.
3. It is more useful to trap the insect under a glass, on a suitable substrate, and then simply watch and wait. They do eventually get tired from all the rushing about. In the meantime, get your camera ready and focused. When the insect stops to catch its breath, carefully remove the glass and shoot. When they start running, simply put the glass back. Repeat, until you get the perfect shot…
This busy mutillid wasp – a wingless female – was running errands. Under a glass she eventually paused – just long enough for a photo or three.
4. Hyper-active insects can sometimes be subdued with a bribe: place a drop of sugar water on the substrate (in this case I had chosen a smooth stone) and move the jar over the drop. Wait for the insect to start drinking, then carefully remove the jar and take your shot.
Is it wrong to shoot wildlife at a watering hole?? An energetic mutillid wasp – this one a winged male – did not stop buzzing around until I gave him a drink .
5. To shoot insects on flowers or leaves, when there is a breeze, operate the camera with one hand and hold the flower with the other. Just don’t jerk the flower in an unnatural, non-breezy way that will startle the insect.
Light
Bright sunlight is nice, if you can get it. Here are three different amazing flower chafers. Yes, it is spring time!
High speed and high F-stop settings reduce the amount of light available, resulting in an underexposed photo in all but the brightest sunlight. What to do?
1. Increase the ISO setting. At super-high ISO the picture ends up grainy, but often photo clarity is still totally acceptable at ISO 2000 or even higher. Play around with your camera so you know what results to expect.
2. Insects often have shiny exoskeletons which reflect the sunlight unpleasantly, hiding interesting patterns and colours. In such cases muted sunlight or light shade works better, if you can arrange it.
When bright sunlight doesn’t work.
3. In the absence of sunlight, the obvious – and often the only – solution is using a flash. However, the flash comes with its own set of problems (more about this in the next installment).
Problem situation: a busy, dark, shiny, metallic beetle on a darkly overcast day. The flash fails completely. The dark integument absorbs most of the light, except for a few brilliant reflections, and masks the beautiful metallic sheen. But without flash, automatic settings (in this case 1/125s, F6.3, 400 ISO) simply don’t work: the colours are fine, but depth of field and motion is hopeless.The next time went better: 1/160s, F10, 1250 ISO.
Combining these in the field
I usually start by taking a ‘recording’ photo’ (“I saw this insect”) using a flash with the following settings: F22, 1/200s, 200 ISO (on my 100mm macro lens). Easy numbers to remember.
Then, if there is enough light, I set ISO to auto, and take some more photos at F11+, 1/200s (or more if there is a breeze) – assuming the insect is still there of course.
If light conditions are such that the ISO goes above 6000, I set the camera to manual: 1/200s, f-stop 11 (or 8 in an absolute emergency), ISO as high as possible without ruining the photo due to graininess. If the photo ends up vastly under-exposed, this can often be fixed in an imaging software.
An extreme case of bad photo conditions: overcast day, deep shade in the undergrowth, strong wind, busy beetle. I maxed out the ISO (6400), upped the speed to 1/400s, set the f-stop to 10, and then processed the grainy and under-exposed photo. Result: not perfect, but usable.
Focus
I use the auto focus only on large insects that are sitting still. For instance when shooting basking butterflies with a tele lens.
The rest of the time I ‘lock and rock‘ in manual focus. Meaning I focus approximately, then fine-focus by moving the camera back and forth ever so slightly, closer and nearer to the insect. (I don’t try move my entire head with the camera. Such movements are too clumsy. I keep my body still and move the camera closer and nearer to the eye.)
If the insect is perching on a branch or flower, I may operate the camera with one hand, and fine-focus by moving the perch with the other.
It is terribly easy to jerk out of focus just as you ‘pull the trigger’. The trick is to keep one’s body dead-still, by sitting or kneeling good and proper, not squatting precariously, by leaning on elbows or against something, by leaning the camera against a solid object, or using a spare hand, wrist or knee as a temporary tripod.
EASTERaction 