MACRO SHMACRO ~ the devil in the detail.

[Surly Ghillie]

PART I

© Wolf Avni December 2009

"Great things occur where Preparedness and Opportunity meet". #1

It’s going on nine months now since that first timid posting I made on ODP, a shot of a Cape sparrow (Motacilla capensis?) if memory serves. The sparrow drew a few modest compliments, welcome enough for a neophyte to a forum and I was on my way. Between there and now I look back over a distance paved in images. How time flies when you’re having fun.

Along the way, buried among the half-million odd snaps on the site, a number of members ask for explanation of the technique behind some of the images, especially in my macro gallery ~ and in the manner of any fool who treads unmindful where angels might fear to dare, I agree to share what it is that I think I am doing. This platform is built in fulfilment of that undertaking.

"I’m blinded by the light,
as anybody might,
wandering through a night burned entirely
out of bytes blurred by pixels. (I said that)" . #2

Anticipating dismissal by my digital superiors for whom the histogram holds no mystery (and the Universe too, apparently) ~ and better to deflect their tolerant sneers tinged with the disdain that rains down like a ****train upon the heads of any who dare build their vision too independent of the mainstream, lets begin by again affirming that I entertain few delusions of any ‘digtal’ expertise. I am an old film jock, a techno-savage. And like all sad derelicts attempting recovery at Alanon meetings everywhere, I must nakedly stand, hanging my head, stoic in baring my badge of shame; that for me photography happens almost entirely in light, in front of a film plane, away from the alchemy of binary math. My comprehension of the new technology is scant and primitive. I cannot properly comprehend a universe composed entirely of zeros and ones and automation. My Photoshop skills are rudimentary. Topping my bucket list is the wish that they were and the need that they be a thousandfold better. But what the hell, in pursuit of inspirational imagery we go along slowly learning to put into the raw what we later hope to extract, holding firm the old-fashioned belief that there is no digital substitute for light ~ no automation for its subtlety, for the simplicity in its construction, nor for accuracy in its reading. Enough said.
Any old film jock who spent too long constructing images to fit conceptual briefs might take an odd view of some of the modern conventions and the semantics they come clothed in ( as indeed I do). But in fact they differ little from the arrant crap that filled the pages of popular photographic periodicals of my day. Then, as now, Techno-speak is used in many ways. It is but one abuse of it in popular articles that perceptions are created of a reality that seeks its fulfilment only in conspicuous consumption. Now, as then, it suggests that ability and accomplishment grow only if you go out and buy the right upgrade. Not true, in fact, it’s second in mendacity only to the big fat histogram lie.

EQUIPMENT.
The sad truth of course is that among us not one in a thousand uses any bit of what we already have, beyond a small fraction of its capability. Mindful of that I sit here on this farm in a valley surrounded by mountains and experiment with my boxes of old tricks and even older equipment. When it comes to the macro stuff, to the search for amplitude, my approach relies on attitudes learned long ago, catering to the exacting demands and brutal standards of ad agency creative directors. The rule was simple. It still is. Do whatever it takes to get the shot; ten parts preparation to one part execution. To pick the shortest path towards where you wish to be you must use what is most appropriate from amongst what you have, and every bit of what you know.
My equipment is an eclectic mix of modern and ancient. For a camera, these days I rely entirely on a Nikon D3, (graded up from my first DSLR, a D200), perhaps already obsolete but for me the newest acquisition by so far as to measure in decades. As I reach for any of my ancient pieces of glass I step through a window that like some time machine fuses both past and present. For lenses I rely on a Nikkor55mm macro f3.5~32, circa 1972, and a somewhat younger (1979) Nikkor 24mm f2.8~22. Employed on their own, standard alignment or reversed via a BR2 reversal ring, used with or without a 50mm Nikon M2 extension tube, they open a window that goes from a 1:1 perspective all the way down to 1:8 (8X) magnification. When even that is not enough, I add in an ancient Nikon Bellows III (as discussed in a previous post "Start @ the top & work your way up". That escalates the range of possible magnifications up to about 15X).
The fact is than any wide angle lens (relative to sensor size) when reversed will create a degree of magnification. The wider the angle, the greater the magnification. On 35mm format (a full frame sensor in digispeak), a 50mm reversed will give you a 1;1 image because it is designed for 1;1 proportionality. A 25mm lens would give a 1:4 magnification, and so on. For every length equivalent to the focal length of the lens that it is extended away from the film plane, the magnification doubles. So my 24mm reversed and extended by its own focal length = an 8x magnifier. Wow! Cool. Of course, just as with telescopic work, the more you magnify the tighter the margins, the more acute the tolerances.

LIGHTING.
Lighting is the single most important element in giving your pictures a personality, their signature if you like. It’s lack is the biggest single factor in the ruination of otherwise perfectly good images made ordinary. Macro work accentuates everything and margins are razor thin, not just depth of field, but equally, contrast, exposure and tonal range. You need to do everything you can to control their amplification.
Now ringflash and on-camera lighting produce nice flat lighting where the modelling is always entirely predictable. But this very characteristic, so sought after by so many , can also make the lighting boring and less than inspirational. Ringflash and on-board lighting have their role, but as lighting for lighting’s sake goes, they are distinctly limiting. I prefer to work with my flash off camera, and I don’t mean bracket-mounted. Off camera means on it’s own stand, be it a separate tripod or whatever. The point is to take full control. I want my light to be manipulable with regard to distance from subject, yes, but equally with regard to angles, especially in that zone between 45E ~ 135E around the lens axis and off the centre point in the vertical plane. I spend a great deal of time on making micro adjustments to my lighting set. Tiny changes make vast differences.
Starting with an ancient Metz Press F flash, I fit its diffusing cover over the flash head. On top of that I slot a sleeve made from a half a milk bottle. It’s soft translucence diffused the light further. It’s still not enough. Over that I tape anywhere from one to three layers of tracing paper, each layer softening the light further.
Now that I have my light properly diffused, I want to limit the output along a narrow corridor not much wider than my plane of focus. At these levels of magnification my front lens element is often withing centimetres of my subject, and with my lens reversed that front element sticks out there like an eye with a bad case of hyperthyroidism, soaking up the least bit of stray light, fogging the image and killing its tonal range. So I make a baffle, a strip of cardboard cut to fit in front of my light. I cover it with tinfoil so that it amplifies the lightscatter reflecting it back into the flash head and restricting output along the chosen channel. Simply by sliding my ‘light-seal’ further or less along the flash head a can control the width and the directing of its beam. I use ordinary tin foil to create fill and bounce reflectors around the subject and the set, always taking care to avoid light scatter catching that ever important front element.
In so doing I create a lighting contradiction; an intense narrow directional beam of completely scrambled photons.

[Surly Ghillie]

PART II.

BUGBOX
My final secret is the Bugbox. About 15 years ago I built this little old bug box, 75mm X 65mm X30mm, a sort of mini-aquarium for the photography of aquatic invertebrates, many of which are no more than a couple of mm long. With only the front and rear planes constructed from 2mm thick optically pure glass and everything else, including its base and sides cut from clear perspex to contain costs, it has repaid the price of its construction many times over and still serves me well. The box itself is screwed to a baseplate for stability and the pieces are glued using liquid silicone rubber. Recently, experimenting with these high levels of magnification, looking at smaller subjects and greater detail within larger, I began to use it for terrestrial macro-invertebrates too, especially for subjects smaller than say 12mm. Using it exactly as I did for aquatics, collecting my specimens together with the vegetation, soil, gravels, barks they are found in, keeping the environmental architecture appropriate to the specific collection, i often work off an ironing board in front of a large plateglass window. The ironing lady gets really happy when I do, but as the pile of ironing in the kitchen grows, my wife gets inversely pissed off.
I would buy another ironing board, but no doubt the significant other would quickly find something else to get pissed off at. Lord knows I create no shortage of opportunity there. And anyway I’m saving towards an upgrade of the flash. That poor Metz is 40 years old and held together with bubblegum and string. The battery compartment long ago gave up the ghost and was resurrected only by the magical properties of high grade industrial ductape.

Every shot is experimental and the lighting exposure must be recalculated for every change in set, or setting.
Go histogram that.


# 1. & 2. From the Unpublished Epigrams of Surly, the Ghillie

[Luc Hosten]

My biggest problem is with your poll. You really should have given us the option of ticking both "useful" and "entertaining." Some lovely images with fantastic detail.

[Surly Ghillie]

Thanks Luc,
but as the poll allows multiple choices, you surely CAN pick both.

[bomtek]

You got issues dude!

Apart from that, some stunning macro photography

[Texasbelle]

By the looks of the choices in boxes ticked your contribution is useful to us all, more than the effect it has on your kitchen anyway
I do like

[Piet Venter]

Very interesting and useful read - thank you for posting.
And obviously the results speak for themselves.

[Anonymous]

The juice was worth the squeeze - very useful.

[WayneB]

Very interesting and entertaining post Wolf. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort for our edification.

Wayne

[Keith Newnham]

A really interesting read Wolf. I had often wondered at the lengths you have to go to get these stunning macro shots and now I know. Tell your good lady wife that the investment in her ironing board is appreciated by many of us

[Surly Ghillie]

Luc, Terry Texas, Piet, Snapz, Wayne & Keith; Thanks everybody.

Seems you can please some of the peeps all of the time, and all of the peeps some of the time, but you just can't please all of the peeps all of the time. (with apologies to Abraham Lincoln) .

[WayneB]

A Bit OT but relevant, I'm working on my small studio for table-top and portraiture work, and I'm busy setting up my material backgrounds (x4). I have the ironing board and the iron sitting in the middle of the room so I can iron the material and get it looking good before hanging it, so I can relate Wolf, my good lady is not impressed! Oh, and to boot my son thinks it's hysterical watching a grown man ironing!

Wayne

[Geurt]

So, the "Ghillie" has yet again tied the right bait to the rod and we are all off, even if it was done with the "gruff" style we got to know so well, happily fishing the realms of the macro pond.

Ta Wolf, it is very informative and I for one, have learned another trick of the trade.

[Surly Ghillie]

So, the "Ghillie" has yet again tied the right bait to the rod and we are all off, even if it was done with the "gruff" style we got to know so well, happily fishing the realms of the macro pond.

Ta Wolf, it is very informative and I for one, have learned another trick of the trade.

. Thanks Geurt, my pleasure. Jump on it. the water's wonderful.

I get a great deal of satisfaction from writing, only, as you may have picked up, not so much the technical stuff, but more just swinging language around for the pure joy of it.

[Cheryl]

I enjoyed it! Look, I've still got so much to learn, but I'm so relieved to see that you don't need to struggle in a slight breeze while taking macro's!!!! I like the perspex/glass box idea. There's hope.Thanks for a good article and sharing some "trade" secrets!

[Surly Ghillie]

I enjoyed it! Look, I've still got so much to learn, but I'm so relieved to see that you don't need to struggle in a slight breeze while taking macro's!!!! I like the perspex/glass box idea. There's hope.Thanks for a good article and sharing some "trade" secrets!

thanks Cheryl.
simple rule; whatever it takes to get the shot. That varies depending on what you have to work with.

The hardest part was sourcing the optical grade clear glass ~ and then cutting it accurately without breaking it. At 2mm it's pretty fragile (but not cheap). I got mine through a contact who had a glass-blowing works. He found it for me in the UK.

[WayneB]

A possible source for high-grade optical glass would be the ATM (Amateur Telescope Makers) in South Africa. There are a couple of suppliers in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area, and if you do a search of just South African sites in Google there are a few links to check. They use glass such as this in the manufacturing of primary and secondary mirrors for Newtonian telescopes. Be prepared though, as Wolf says this stuff isn't cheap!

Wayne

[Riaan van Wyk]

Wolf, Peter Betts will have a field day with your method, capturing wild animals, putting them in a box (!!) and then ( heavens forbid) using flash on them. And admiting it. And yes I know of the old trick of putting insects in the fridge to "calm down." Said "tongue in cheek" PLEASE NOTE.


Jokes aside, your thoughts perhaps on the "moral" issue with this method? Reason for asking is that few people consider a lacewing as having the same importance as a leopard in the bigger scheme of "things." But no one complains about using flash on a lacewing or any other macro subject for that matter.

No need to gallop off on a horse called " Tangent" though- just your take on how you would reply when confronted with the question?

[Surly Ghillie]

Riaan, thank you. Excellent post. I see you're looking to up the tempo a bit here?

If you are asking for myself, I'm not uncomfortable with what I do. I take as much care as I might. I return my specimens to the exact locality that I collect them~ the survivors, that is. Everything out here eats everything else. The physics of it is that energy cannot be destroyed, merely transformed. I regard myself as living closer to Nature and observing its rules, rhythms & patterns at least as much as anyone else I've ever met ~ and maybe a great deal more than anyone you ever will. I treat it with reverence and with honest respect. More than 20 years ago I walked away from a very successful photo studio and business, to build myself a life more in tune with nature and wilderness. I did it not for recognition, but for ME, for my core of being. It takes all my effirt trying to live in a way that is true to myself. It's hard enough 'practicing' ~ ain't got enough time to preach. Anybody who thinks they are the 'saviour' is free to express their belief in their own choices. All of life is about taking ownership of ones own choices, good or bad.

To the extent that any self proclaimed morality watchdog is secure in their own purity, surely the example of their lives is far more effective in changing attitudes and the reality of their life-footprint, than any amount of sermonising and public posturing?

If the debate is not about photographic technique, but about morality, well then, who alive is one jot better than they aught to be? Every bit of every human activity is paid for by the ecology of the planet. What morality explains using a 100 grand camera , and a hundred grand lens to indulge your hobby, while half the world's children go to bed hungry every night of their lives? It's just so easy to ooze moral indignation. I wonder if Peter Betts (God bless him, I have no wish to be the auditor of his, or anyone else's morality)_ has ever taken 10 seconds to calculate the carbon footprint of his life, his photography, and him getting his photographs have on the fundamental fabric of life (in the all encompassing Buddhist interpretation of it)?.

Does he drive a car? Does he use it to 'just nip down to the shops' ever? Does he wear shoes? Does he indulge in IT upgrades and the fancy plasma screen that makes his pics look so wow? And what happens to the old one when he needs a new one? And what is the effect of that multiplied by a half a billion ****shot photographers around the planet? Does he turn a light on at night unthinkingly, while tens of thousands of moths, caddis flies, lacewings, stoneflies, etc. etc, etc, thrash themselves to death against it every night? Or does he savehis concerns about light pollution for when he's away on 'holiday' in the bush? Does he ever just chop away a bit of vegetation to give himself a clearer view? Does he ever consider the erosional consequence of running a vehicle along the same track more than once? Is his awareness of the fragility around him equal in all spheres of his life, or just when he's posting leopard pics? I dunno, and frankly, I'm too busy trying to pay attention to the effects of my own footsteps as i try to make it through life, to particularly care.

"each man's destiny is personal only insofar as it may happen to resemble what is already in his memory" (eduardo mallea).

What does that mean?

This really is subject enough for its own website....never mind a little side debate on a MACRO technique thread.

No ways one puny little thread will move the philosophy of ethics any further than it hasn't come in the last 3 million years of human evolution. And however evolved any of us think we are ~ don't forget that 99 point something percent of your dna, your molecular makeup, is pure, fornicating, murdering, self-obsessed, power-hungy, carnivourous chimpanzee driven by the overwhelming imperative to get laid more than anyone else on the block.

Please note, I do not know Peter Betts and I have no opinion of his moral standards, or what it's influence might or might not be on the way we wilfully destroy every part of creation we come into contact with. You use his name to build a straw dog and I respond merely to that. Lets not turn this into a personality bunfight. I'm in 2 minds about whether i should allow this thread to go down this road, not because of any lack of value to the issue, but because i intended here to share a broader skill in my personal approch to the making of images and this could so easily slide into a holier-than-thou clusterf*ck?

[Riaan van Wyk]

No need to gallop off on a horse called " Tangent" though- just your take on how you would reply when confronted with the question?

And you have dissapeared off into the sunset

I should have maybe posted my question in a PM to you Wolf. I realise only now what a can of worms the "morality issue" can open- pity though they are bitter and of no use for fishing.

I also should not have mentioned a name when I typed the "tongue in cheeck" paragraph. Apologies.

Getting back to topic- your sharing of how you capture your macro images is comendable. Especialy taking into account the time taken to write your piece.

If it is the only way you capture insects I would comment that it is limiting though.