The Easter Selection 2017

I had two afternoons free over the Easter Weekend to take some macro photos.  With the sun out but not overly warm I set off to the banks of the River Stour, near National Trust White Mill.  This place is good for mining bees at this time of year, and I hunt them down as they seek out nectar in the dandelions.

I took some blue and green cards that I supported behind some of the shots using a Plamp to hold the card.  I like this as it gives a clean coloured background to the images.

First the ones with the blue card.

Mining Bee
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Mining Bee
Dandelion Licking
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Dandelion Licking
Looking At Ya
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Looking At Ya
Yellow Heaven
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
Yellow Heaven
Peeking out
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
Peeking out

And the green card ones.

Pollen Face
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Pollen Face
Smelling the Flower
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Smelling the Flower

If I am close enough to some background I can get the natural greens in the backgrounds to show through as they get lit by the flash.

Stepping on the Grass
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
Stepping on the Grass
Balance
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Balance
Just Hanging Out
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Just Hanging Out

The above were all shot at 200 ISO.  But having recently got a Canon 5D mkIV, I wanted to experiment with pushing the ISO up higher so that even when using flash, some ambient light would be picked up in the background.  So I pushed the ISO to 1600, and took a couple of bees.

The result are pleasing to me, as the flash has frozen the bee, the background has exposed by ambient light.  And the details are present in the subject, and the noise not an issue like it would of been on my older Canon 760D.  Here are two shots taken with this technique.

Swinging Yellow Fist
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO1600)
Swinging Yellow Fist
Mining the Pollen
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO1600)
Mining the Pollen

Whilst hunting for the bees I also came across a Dance fly in the yellow flowers.

Dance Fly
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Dance Fly
Eyes on Yellow
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Eyes on Yellow

And finally in these I was using yet another diffuser setup – two bake bean cans on the Canon MT-24ex flash heads with some packing foam over the ends.  I think this worked nicely on the bees, but I also was pleased with the results on this more flash reflective beetle.

Dock Beetle
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (65mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
Dock Beetle

All images taken on Canon 5d MkIV with Canon MPE-65mm lens (Light from Canon MT-24ex Twin flash with tin can diffuser setup).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *