Thank you!

Superb advice. That's what I call "actionable intelligence"! I can't wait to try your recipe for aperture/speed/ISO. As I mentioned in my last response, I did not take the time to clearly think through all those important settings because it was an impromptu event, at night, when I saw the spider and decided to grab some quick shots.

Another thing I must try is using a diffuser. I'll first try the built-in diffuser that's in my SB700. If that doesn't help I'll move on to try some of the ideas mentioned in Douglass' post regarding macro equipment. Earlier in the day that I took these photos, I had the LED ring light on and it seemed to provide fairly even lighting. But it definitely created harsh lighting during the night shots of this spider.

You guys are all so helpful on this forum. I have a long way to go before hoping to get shots as great as yours but I feel confident that, with your help, I have a chance of getting there!

Thank you for offering your excellent advice! I just checked the metadata for the originals and see they were shot with the ISO set to a whopping 1000. I try to never go above 800, but sometimes I can get away with up to 1250 (or whatever that value is in that range). I didn't realize that stacking multiple images would also drag in noise changes, but that makes perfect sense. These photos were taken at night and that's the reason for the wide-open aperture and high ISO settings. I guess I was in a rush and didn't stop to go through my mental checklist of settings. These things aren't all ingrained with me as second-nature, and if I don't think through all the settings, I often still get one or more wrong! Thanks again, I really appreciate your time to help.
Duane

Hello all,

Here's a photo taken a couple of weeks ago with my Nikon D600 and Nikon 85mm macro. This photo is actually a stacked image; seven originals were blended together in Photoshop in order to improve the focus depth.

I used a cheap LED ring light mounted on the lens, as well as a macro focus rail on the tripod to allow me to "step in" a little after each shot.

Two things bother me about this image and I'd like any feedback. First, I'm disappointed the depth isn't greater. My guess here, though, is that the aperture was at a very low f/3.5. Since the spider was staying pretty still, I suppose I should have gone for a higher aperture and longer shutter speed.

Secondly, there's a lot of glare in the spider's eyes. I'm very surprised that the LED ring light even produced enough light to create glare. What's the best way to solve this?

Thanks for any advice!
Duane

I just went out again and got some macro video of the carnage. The brown Mantis is now being consumed by the female.


Here's a small clip. I'll try to get more later.

http://youtu.be/zHDaZq6za7g

Just went out to see how Mortal Kombat was going. Looks like the female is winning. This shot taken just minutes ago. This is just a preview of more to come. She's busy eating the leg off the other mantis. I'm afraid he's doomed.

Hi Scott and Douglass,

Sorry I've been absent from the forum for a few days. You'd think being laid off because of the Gov't shutdown, I'd have plenty of spare time. I've just been swamped catching up with a lot of things that had fallen behind.

Scott, you used a 105mm for your photos? Some of those seem to be extreme closeups, certainly far better than my 85mm. And the color in some of those insects, have you been to the amazon or something? Damn. And the extreme DOF; are these multi-frame focus-stacked images?

Douglass I think I agree with you. I do have a very old Sigma 200mm prime lens that's manual focus, but it's f2.8. And it has a macro mode (although not great). And of course I do often switch into manual mode on my 85mm, especially if I have my rail assembly attached. I'm perfectly comfortable with manual focus. BUT - the VR is nice, and I am getting pretty good at controlling auto focus with my 85mm to get focus where I want it. So, money aside, I think I'd rather have VR and AF if possible. Looking into lenses is "on my list" for today. Hopefully I'll get to that.

Oh, Scott, thanks for reminding me about extra light. As it turns out, I own an LED light right that I bought a couple years ago and has just been in the closet. I got it out last night and have been using it.

Exciting news! The bee-eating mantis has left the bush and laid her egg-sack thingy (proper name, Douglass?) I got macros of her actually laying it. This morning I went to check on her. Not only do I have pics of the completed thingy, but I noticed she was staring down another mantis about a foot and a half away. I have several pics taken just an hour ago of her stalking and then attacking the other mantis. A brutal fight ensued, all caught on 'film'. I'll be posting updated photos a little later!

I'm still struggling to learn photography; for a brief moment I was scared that I might have to take up entomology also!

Gosh, I've clicked through to the websites of a few of the folks who've been kind enough to respond to my posts. Wow! You guys have some unbelievable talent and some stunning photos to prove it. I wish some of you lived closer to me; I'd love to tag along on bug hunts and learn from the masters.

The Gov't is shut down; I'm home today without pay. I may run up to the nearest lake and try to get some mid-air geese photos. I have much work to do with motion panning techniques.

Thanks John, and everyone, for your nice comments!

Yes, very true about the alien aspects. The closer I look at these insects, the more I'm convinced that we are not alone :-) I'm surprised I haven't started having nightmares yet...

Thank you so much for the advice Douglass, it means a lot. I will check out each of those!

Duane

Thanks for your comments guys!

So this was the very first time I've used an external flash. It was fun experimenting around. And although the first shot is a little dark, the focus on the eyes was a tad better.

Oh, the day after these shots, I had two neighbors ask me what the hell was going on at 10pm in my back yard with all the flashes. :-)

I'm a total newbie to both digital photography and forums, so I'm trying to figure out proper forum etiquette.

Oh, I forgot to mention. At first I didn't know what the mantis was eating. I thought it was a fly or something. It was only later that I witnessed the Beast catching the bumblebees; the same bees that I had just photographed a week before.

So for a couple of days I had to turn away whenever I saw a bee getting to close to the mantis, thinking "run away, bee, run away!". Today, however, I decided to grab the camera and try to get an "action shot" of the take-down. Alas, however, there weren't many bees on the plant. I don't know if the Beast has eaten them all or it's just getting too cold. LOL.

Thank you very much William. It means a lot to receive nice comments. I show my photos to friends and family and I'm lucky if I get an "oh, that's nice". LOL It's good to be on a forum now and receive comments, criticism, and praise from like-minded friends.

Alright then, I suppose I need to get back to studying specs on a new full-frame lens. Douglass suggested the Nikkor 105G. I got a tad confused the other day looking around on Ebay because there seemed to be more than one variety of Nikkor 105mm macro lenses. My eyes begin to glaze over after a short while :-)

Oh my, maybe I shouldn't be posting photos of spiders on a forum where there are obviously spider experts, unless I know more about my subjects ;-)

So, dumb question: Should I be making the effort to list all the technical details for each shot that I post? Is that considered the "norm" here?

Hi Douglass,

Thank you for the great information and kind words. I knew about the automatic cropping with a DX lens on the FX camera, and the nice thing about the D600 is that it displays the crop area in the view finder, although sometimes in the heat of the moment it can be easy to forget about the crop area and misalign the composition or, worse yet, cut something important out of the frame.

As my mind finally begins to wrap itself around all there is to know to get the shot the way I want it, many details that I used to fret over are beginning to become second nature now and I can focus more on composition and the truly important technical settings such as the best aperture or speed.

I was looking on Ebay the other day at the Nikkor 105 macro lenses. That's when I discovered I would need to drop around $800 or more to get one. At that point my brain began to convince me that what I already owned might be good enough :-)

I need to focus more on selling older equipment so that I can upgrade!