I like the look of this bee a lot, but this is one of the very few times I was able to also capture an insect other than a bee. One of the things I love about these echinacea is the colorful spikes in those danger colors—yellow, orange, and red—like a collection of nuclear warheads arranged by Fibonacci.
Honeybee and green fly join forces in the inspection of nuclear warheads
Generally the best of the macrobox images are ones in which a bee is in mid air yet still in focus. I’ve gotten some very nice ones—this here is an excellent example. This Dahlia variety is called Golden Hour.
Honeybee prepares to land on a Golden Hour Dahlia
Clown Moshe Cohen at the memorial service for Bruce (U. Utah) Phillips
F32 and BEES There #2
Boris in one of his comments on Folio A asked for more detail on the Macrobox, which is given here:
The Macrobox is based on a contraption I purchased years ago from John Hart of Colorado. It was designed to hold 2 cameras at 90 degrees to each other, and both cameras were aimed at a 50/50 mirror (aka a beamsplitter) which is at a 45 degree angle. One camera shoots THROUGH the mirror, while the other shoots at the reflection.
Overhead view of the Macrobox
Side view of the Macrobox
In the sideview picture you can see the beamsplitter on the left side of the rig. If you look carefully at the mirror, you can see both cameras.
The cameras are individually mounted on sliders so they can be slid into position. Additionally, the Macrobox is normally mounted on a heavy-duty Velbon macro slider, to help with making fine adjustments to the positioning.
Close up shot of a honeybee on a dahlia
Keep it down up there, Willya?
One of the reasons I wanted, and built, this Macrobox was to capture shots of Tess in MF3D. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy pursuit because the moment I started doing something she would be all over it. “No, Tess, I want you *in front* of the camera. Not *on* the camera.” That sort of thing.
I was able to catch her in a quiet moment when the camera and strobes had been pre-set for her position. I like to think that in this shot she is hollering at some kids upstairs to be quiet. In fact I caught her in mid yawn.
F32 and BEE There!
4 From Bob Venezia
Timing was very unfortunate this year. I blame the Coronavirus. I received 2 folios within days of my state being identified as one of the world’s hotspots. The problem was compounded when several of my coworkers were ordered home because of potential exposures to the virus. For a while I was doing the work of 5 people. Even though by now there are 4 of us doing the work of 5, I’ve still been working long hours and not getting enough rest.
Sorry to have held onto the folio for so long. I’ll try to add some context to the photos in the coming days.
Skydiver is among my all-time favorite carnival ride shots. It’s the only time I captured the intermittent movement of this ride while it was loading. (My other captures of the ride show a more boring seamless disk when the ride was in full motion.
Photographers Playground is a slight hyperstereo shot at Bryce Canyon. At the time I was cursing these people who were messing up my nature shot. But clearly I ‘m an idiot, as you can see that they make the shot. Shot with Hasselblads at about 18 inches separation.
Fireworks (Sorry, I’ve already sent off the folio and don’t remember the exact title) is another of my hyper shots with forty feet separation.
And Edison Advances is shot with twin Hasselblads in a macrobox with a beamsplitter.
Our cat Edison abiding on a comfy chair.
I do plan to continue this pursuit, but it will involve rebuilding the macro box to accommodate two motorized Hasselblads that can be triggered wirelessly
This was shot with flashes. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of the strobist blog. If you are interested in learning about using portable flash units, go there and start with Lighting 101. I can’t recommend it enough.
I like the eyes and whiskers of course but I especially love the hairs in Eddie’s ears. They remind me of fireworks trails.
The Spaulding Meadows are popular all year round. These are not meadows with cultivated hay fields. These are meadows in the second sense of the word, being areas of grass and flowers near the treeline. In the winter, they are very popular ski destinations, but the snowfall was so scant this year that there was virtually no skiing at all. They will often have snow in them until May, but by February 2015, the snow was gone. The images in this set are from a pair of trips I made to try to capture the combination of snow-free meadows and low-angle light.
Spaulding PondsThe ponds and pools in the meadows were still solid enough to walk across, so it made for very easy access to all corners of this space. I nestled in under a couple of trees to try to capture the frosty glint on the branch tips. I provided a little bit of fill-flash in an attempt to brighten the gloom under the trees.
Two TowersDespite the level of the clouds, I think you can gauge the height of the sun. This was about noon, so you can see that the sun doesn’t get very high in Juneau in the winter. I think this image effectively contains infinity without containing a horizon. This is a very common condition in Southeast Alaska. The weather is very close and we are often hiking in the clouds at less than 1,000 of elevation. This image was made at about 800‘ with my TL120-55.
Spaulding Close UpWhile enjoying a cup of tea and taking in my surroundings, I found myself staring at a tree. My attention was drawn to a low-lone branch. And further drawn to the tufts of needles on a twig on that branch. And here it is. I would have liked to close in on a single tuft, but the TL120-1 can’t focus closely enough.
Rose from Mandy's garden shot in a DIY macro box
I had been wanting to try out some close-up subjects with my hasselblads and I remembered seeing some great close-up flower images that Hai Tran had shown me. And Dale Walsh shared some close-up MF-3D at one of the NSA conventions. So I started shooting some experiments.
Of course after I started shooting I got all my film mixed up so I can’t exactly tell you what I did! But I’m going to start over again when I have the time and do some better documenting!
This was shot with a hasselblad on a slide bar. I think the separation between the lens centers is about 1/2 inch. The foremost part of the rose isn’t as sharp as I want it. But I think the leaf looks awesome! And the lighting on this setup worked out better (on the leaf) than in subsequent setups, and I am going to try to match this look.
I clearly needed some dust control. The rose blossom was heavy and I propped it up with a little tripod bent out of wire but I wasn’t clever enough in hiding it so you can see a sliver of it on the bottom.
I built a DIY macro box based on this post on strobist:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html
I’m not done exploring this.
Our fearless leader John has suggested we all enter self-portraits. So here you go. A couple years ago I was preparing to have a photo session with my friend (and master bubble blower) Tom Noddy. I wanted to work out the kinks before Tom came over so I experimented. Can’t remember if I had a digital slr at the time but that would have been invaluable. I’m sure I took readings from a flash meter plus I did some tests for DOF with a tape measure running away from the camera. My memory is that the tape measure showed focus on the inch numbers 28 through 32 but the notes on this image indicate a wider range.
This is shot with the TL-120 with Provia 400X, 1/60th of a second at f22. The focus was cranked to the .8 marker. The notes indicate that my face was at 32″, the bubble at 24″. There was a large potato masher style flash aimed at the ceiling and a Vivitar 283 equipped with a lightsphere (yes, I bought one of those silly things). There was black velvet draped behind to limit the depth in the scene. Shot in my dining room.