Hand-Held Macro Photography

Hey all – Rob here…

Since starting photography in 2004, May to August have always been my most productive months. There are plenty of subjects to choose from: birds, amphibians, flowers, insects, landscapes… On weekends, I’d often head out before dawn to the Ile Bizard marsh to photograph birds, frogs, turtles, otters or other marsh residents. When I don’t feel like getting up before dawn, I’d set up for macro photography a little later in the morning.

This year? Man, oh man… May, June and July were cool, very wet and windy. Montreal had record amounts of rain in July (4.6 inches), with some rainfall on 26 days out of 31 days. You can forget about going to the Ile Bizard marsh for bird photography in these conditions, as it will be very quiet. And windy or very sunny conditions make traditional macro photography extremely difficult.

With changing weather patterns, bird photography has been getting inconsistent at the marsh. I cannot control this. But there are always insects to photograph, and these critters are what I turn to in order satisfy my need for photography. This summer, with either too much wind, rain, too much cloud, or (ironically) too much sun, even insects were hard to photograph.

How bad has it been? Well, excluding the images taken at the Green Mountain Workshop in June, my number of “keeper shots” from start of May to end of July was 19… Only 19!

Mating Japanese Beetles
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/100s, ISO 400
Hand-held

Photography is my hobby, my passion, my stress release. Not being able to do photography is extremely disappointing and frustrating, particularly since I worked like a dog throughout the summer (averaging over 55 hours a week). I need photography to soothe my soul!

So I needed to find a solution… How can I get more keeper images in windy or extremely sunny conditions?

I’d always had a “purist” approach to macro photography: tripod-mounted camera, focus by hand, small aperture, cable release, hand-held diffuser to soften the harsh light, etc… I’ve had very good results with this technique. But this year’s generally windy summer has made this process very difficult – and frustrating. Trying to position a tripod without scaring off an insect is often an exercise in futility.

I’ve been seeing some rather spectacular hand-held macro images on internet forums… How do these people achieve this? I mean, precise focus and a lot of depth of field are so critical for macro photography…

So hand-held? No way! Impossible! Can’t be done! … or so I thought.

Ruby Meadowhawk Dragonfly
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/100s, ISO 400
Hand-held

It turns out that it is quite possible and relatively easy to do. And the results are outstanding. The idea is to properly set up your flash, and to let the flash do the main exposure of your subject. You want to avoid the flash acting as a strong “spotlight” that creates harsh shadows. In fact, you don’t want the flash to be noticeable at all. But you need the flash duration to be very short in order to be able to hand-hold your macro gear and get pin-sharp shots.

Here are the basic concepts to follow:

• Place the flash as close as possible to the subject. This keeps the duration of the flash very short.
• Angle the flash appropriately such that your subject is properly lit
• Diffuse the light from the flash as much as possible
• Set your camera in manual exposure mode, and let the camera expose the subject via the flash
• Set the shutter speed at flash synch speed (read your camera manual!) or slower. This lets the flash properly expose the subject
• Set your aperture at f/16 (or so) for sufficient depth of field
• Set your ISO in combination with the shutter speed such that your background does not “turn to black”.
• Preset the focus distance on the lens so that you get the desired subject magnification, and physically move the lens back and forth until you achieve perfect focus.

With the above, since the flash is placed very close to the subject and the flash duration is extremely short, it is possible to hand-hold the camera for macro shots.

Let’s take look at the equipment and technique involved. Here’s my setup:

My Macro Setup

• A large 5″ x 8″ diffuser attached to the flash. The diffuser increases the surface area of the light emitted from the flash. As my macro subject are small, this ends up acting like a huge softbox, completely eliminating harsh shadows. I am using the Westcott Micro-Apollo diffuser, but other brands are available.
• A Wimberley macro flash bracket. This allows placement of the flash at the very front of my lens, and in any angle I want. The flash bracket is attached to a quick release plate that is either on the lens’ tripod collar, or on the camera’s tripod plate. I have an “L-plate” on my camera, and I prefer attaching the macro bracket on the side of the camera.
• An off-camera flash cord to connect the flash to the camera’s hot shoe.
• A macro lens or any other setup that lets you get close to your subject

Transverse-Banded Crab Spider
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/200s, ISO 200
Hand-held

I’ve been having most success when I use the Canon 500D diopter with my Sigma 150mm macro lens. The 500D is a high quality dual-element diopter, and it allows closer focusing to the subject. With the diopter, my focusing range is between about 4 inches and 36 inches from the front of the lens. Since the 500D does not “absorb” any light, my viewfinder is bright, making focusing much easier than if I used extension tubes or a 1.4x extender (which darken the viewfinder). My setup lets me get as much as 2x life size, meaning that a subject as small as about 3/4″ inch would completely fill the frame.

Now, I don’t want to go into the intricate details of flash and ambient exposure theory, and other nitty-gritty details, But I do want to give you a general idea how to get good macro shots using a flash. Let’s take a quick look at:

• Camera settings
• Setting up the composition
• Flash & camera exposure
• Flash positioning
• Focusing

Camera Settings

I almost always shoot macro images at f/16 – this is a good compromise between sufficient depth of field and avoiding lens diffraction, I’ll sometimes go to f/11 or f/22, but 90% of my images are at f/16.

My shutter speed is between 1/200s (my camera’s synch speed) and 1/100s. I determine the shutter speed, along with the ISO setting (between 100 and 400) depending on whether there is a background that will be lit by the flash or not… More on this below.

Ruby Meadowhawk Dragonfly
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/200s, ISO 200
Hand-held

Setting up the composition

Since I’m exposing my insect using my flash, I want to either have a background very close to my subject (i.e. have my subject on a leaf, or have plants in the near background), or I want to set up my ISO/shutter/aperture exposure such that my camera will record enough light from my non-flashed background.  If I am not careful with this, then my background can go to pitch black, and this is not pleasing.

Flash and Camera Exposure

When set in Manual exposure mode, if the Flash Exposure Compensation is set at 0 and the shutter speed is at or slower than the flash synch speed, my camera will trigger the flash such that the main subject exposure is achieved entirely by the light coming from the flash. This works regardless of the selected aperture and ISO, assuming that my main subject is within range of the flash. There is still “ambient” exposure happening (determined by the shutter/aperture/ISO settings) for areas of the scene that are not lit by the flash. So you need to make sure that you’re not overexposing the background (i.e. don’t go to ISO 6400, f/2.8 at 1 second in sunlight!). Similarly, it’s better for the ambient exposure to be sufficient such that your background is not too underexposed, assuming that the  background is not lit by the flash.

The closer the ambient exposure is to “correct exposure”, the less obvious and more pleasing the flash exposure will look.

The above is true for all flash photography – try it on indoor portraits! If you can get your ambient exposure close to a reading of -1 on your camera meter, you’ll likely be pleased with the overall results. Oh, and yes, using a diffuser for portrait flash photography will produce better results than using a “naked” flash.

Shamrock Orbweaver Spider
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/200s, ISO 100
Hand-held

In the above picture, I set my camera exposure to properly expose the sky as a mid-tone. The spider was completely in the shadows and backlit, but the flash perfectly exposed it. Neat, huh?

Flash Positioning

Depending how close my subject is to my lens, my flash may either be pointed downwards (45 degree) or pointed straight ahead… I may place the flash very close to the lens, or raise it a few inches above it. It may be on the side of the lens, or directly over it… There is no magic position here – it entirely depends on the shape, size and distance of my subject. By playing around with the positioning of the flash, I can get flatter or more textured details. This is where trial-and-error is critical.

Focusing

Because I am hand-holding a relatively heavy and bulky setup, it is not possible to focus using the lens focusing ring. Rather, I pre-set the focusing ring based on how much magnification I want. For a small subject such as a spider, I’d set it to the closest focusing distance. For a large butterfly, I may set it a the 1/2 focusing point aiming to be about 2 feet away. Once this is set, I will physically move the lens back and forth until my subject is in perfect focus… This is the tricky part, obviously. A few millimeters may significantly affect the focus. If possible, I will rest my elbow on my thigh or tightly set it into my mid-section, in order to stabilize the whole setup.

As soon as I see perfect focus being achieved, I’ll hit the shutter button.

Cabbage White Butterfly
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/200s, ISO 400
Hand-held

I’m absolutely thrilled with my macro setup. I’m able to get images I would never be able to get with a tripod. I can go hunting for insects in full sunlight (when they’re more active) as my exposure is mostly set by my beautifully diffused flash rather than the harsh sunlight, there is no problem with ugly shadows. I can get a shot within 5-10 seconds, as opposed to 1-2 minutes if I had to set up my tripod. It’s made all the difference this summer – rather than an abysmal crop of images, I’ve gotten dozens of publishable images in August alone. I’ve managed images of subjects as flighty as the Cabbage White butterfly, and close enough to tiny Meadowhawk dragonflies to see the tiny details in their eyes.

Ruby Meadowhawk Image Detail (Crop of Pervious Image)
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens with Canon 500D diopter
Canon 550EX flash with Micro-Apollo diffuser
f/16, 1/200s, ISO 200
Hand-held

At 700 pixels, the image above is about 50% of the size from the real image (so, in the original, the above crop would be about 140 pixels wide). The amount of detail I get from my 22 megapixel 5D MkII with this macro setup is frightening!

Side note: although I hand hold my macro flash setup, I always bring my tripod along… It’s much easier to carry my camera on my tripod over my shoulder than hand-carrying a 6+ lbs camera and lens!

Other Options

If you’re really into macro, there are two other pieces of Canon macro equipment worth considering. I’m talking about macro photography in the 1x to 5x range… There’s the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 lens, and the MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite Ringlite Flash… This setup, with proper flash diffusers, will create incredible images at high magnification (see the “No Cropping Zone” link below). But for me right now, this gear is too highly specialized. What I really like about my current equipment is that I can use it for many different applications.

Additional Information

For interesting information on flash and macro photography, please see:

• Strobist – Learn How to Light
• No Cropping Zone – Macro Photography Explained
• Juza Forums – Macro Gear Setup
• Fred Miranda Macro Forum

That’s it for this time, friends… I hope you enjoyed this more technical “how-to” post. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a blog comment or to contact me. As always, I’m happy to spread my knowledge of photography.

All the best,

Rob

Posted by Rob under Equipment,Flash,Lenses,Macro,Summer,Technique | Comments (10)