Macro Techniques for Improved Lighting The Art of Photographing Nature by Art Wolfe(Photographer), Martha Hill List Price: $27.50 Our Price: $22.00 You Save: $5.50 (20%) The first how-to book by Art Wolfe, America's most renowned nature photographer, written in collaboration with the former photography editor of Audubon magazine. Together, they help everyone from novice to experienced amateur to see like a photography professional. Full-color photographs. copyright 1995 Larry Sizemore Macro photography is one of the most rewarding genres of nature photography. It forces one to observe an incredible world that is largely unappreciated by even the average naturalist. Your first steps into the world of macro will leave you with a new bond with nature and fine tune your observation skills. Macro photography is also physically demanding and tedious. Few areas of photography call on more mental discipline, physical endurance, and patience. You may be thinking of Galen Rowell hanging on a sheer cliff face with his Nikon, or of Leonard Rue moving across a duck pond in a specially constructed floating blind. These guys work hard for their shots, but don't underestimate the savvy needed to capture a wildflower closeup. You are in Control Good closeup work demands precision in setup, thorough knowledge of equipment and film, a willingness to crawl in the mud, and the discipline to endure poison ivy, bee stings, mosquitoes, and kamikaze gnats that are particularly attracted to eyes and noses. The wind, however, is the greatest enemy of quality macro work. As a columbine flower hangs from its thread of a stem, even your breath as you exhale will spoil the shot with 50 ISO films.The great thing about closeup work is your ability to control light. If you read my article "Finding the Best Light," you realize that midday sun is useless for most photographic applications. This can be prime time for macro work provided the wind is calm. I carry my "cloudy day in a bag kit" along with me whenever I am expecting to shoot closeups, and as the morning magic light becomes too harsh for the film to handle, I am looking for subject matter in the small world at my feet. Getting Set Up My kit consists of a Photoflex collapsible translucent diffuser that I paid $30. for, and a couple of Hefty kitchen size white diffusers that I paid 30 cents for. A few clothespins complete the kit. These items take up little space while serving the dual purpose of blocking wind and softening the light. I use sticks from the field to support the diffusers, often creating a tent around the subjects. I am always careful to keep all vegetation intact when I setup a scene. I almost always choose subjects alongside a trail for this reason. My camera is often mounted on a tripod leg with a Bogen mini clamp and ball head, leaving the other two legs as potential supports for the plastic bags. These two images were shot in midday sun, the one on the TOP was with my diffusion setup, the one on the BOTTOM, without it. Notice the burned out highlights and the extreme contrast in the full sun image. Setting up a shot often requires far more time than taking the shot. I usually remove the camera from the tripod, or use a second camera hand held to find the best approximate position. I use longer lenses such as a 105 micro, a 200 micro, or an original Nikkor AF75-300 with an extension tube (an excellent setup by the way, although the 75-300 has been redesigned into a less expensive product with price point appeal...look for the older one). These lenses give me more room, keep me on the trail, and allow me to isolate the background. I then plan my setup and get the camera and lighting modifiers in place. I always step back to make sure the camera is parallel to my intended plane of focus. I take a spot meter reading and set my exposure using the Tone Indexing. Depth of field Focusing and aperture determination can be very tricky in macro applications. A depth of field preview is critical here. I usually determine the plane that is most critical, for instance along the edges of the subject. Other critical areas include the pistil and stamen on a flower, the edges of a butterfly wing as well as the eyes and antennae, any area that is against a contrasting background, etc. The columbine shots below are a good example. The front petal is clearly out of focus, but it is not distracting because of the similar colored petals behind of it. The pistil and stamen must be sharp because they are against a contrasting backdrop, and all edges are sharp. The background is out of focus even at f8, a wide aperture compared to most of my shots. DOF preview can be a valuable tool in finding the true center of area of acceptable focus. 12 3 Here are three different examples of the same shot of columbine made in midday light. (1)Using my diffusion setup ,(2) in full sun with no diffuser , (3) and using the photoflex diffuser to cast shadows on the background only. The call is up to you, photography is subjective after all. And...Add a Little Luck Since it takes quite a long time to set up this type of shot , it is prudent to vary your f-stop, your exposure, and your focus point within a series of shots. Usually, as one begins to actually make the exposure, the wind picks up. This is where the patience kicks in. I can't overemphasize the degree of discipline that it takes to tolerate setting up a shot like this and being forced by a steady soft breeze to go home empty handed...but it happens. Similarly, I can't overemphasize the reward of bringing home several stunning images. I was setting up a shot of Spring beauties here. The plastic softened the sunlight coming over the log and the photoflex reflected light into the scene. The camera is mounted to the leg of the tripod using a Bogen Super Clamp and a small ball head.