For our readers in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that time of year again — days are hotter, nights are shorter, and the air is stuffier. With the changes in weather, two different creatures are beginning to emerge from their deep winter slumbers: the insect and the macro photographer. As macro photography grows more popular, a key question arises: what is the best way to light a bug’s picture?
Captured with a ring light.
Several different lighting techniques exist for macro photography, with each method having its own rewards and drawbacks. The best lighting method for one situation may not work at all in another, and some common lighting techniques for macro photography aren’t as helpful as they appear.
The most simple lighting method, of course, is to use natural light exclusively, without any flashes or ring lights. On the plus side, natural lighting in macro photography tends to look nicer than artificial light, and, at the right times of day, it can be simply beautiful. However, with the small apertures and fast shutter speeds required for sharp macro photos, natural light sometimes just isn’t bright enough.
Captured in natural light.
To fix this inherent problem, two main solutions exist: ring lights and flashes. Ring lights tend to be cheaper, but they are significantly less powerful. Some argue that they produce flat and unnatural lighting, too. On the other hand, flashes are more versatile (including double and singe flash options), but they are also much harsher and more expensive than ring lights.
Before I continue with the tutorial, I should point out that bugs are bugs, and spring is mating season — now you know.
Natural Lighting
In many ways, natural light is inherently better than a flash — it’s free, for starters, and you don’t have to worry about changing its position. Plus, when the sun is near the horizon or behind a cloud, the quality of natural light is better for macro photography than all but the most elaborate artificial lighting solutions.
When you work with natural light, the main issue is that you need to position yourself to take advantage of the best available angle. For example, it is possible to use the rising sun as a backlight, something that cannot be imitated with most artificial lights.
With natural lighting, an important positive is that the light source stays effectively still. To change the quality of light, you must move yourself around the object you wish to photograph. This can lead to more creative options than may be visible at first — even minor differences in your position can make an important difference in the quality of foreground or background light.
In the image below, I used a slight backlight to create a highlight outlining my subject, but I made sure to position myself so that the damselfly did not become a complete silhouette.
When you use natural light for macro photography, you will always be pushing the boundaries of your camera system. Even during the middle of the day, you may struggle to keep your images at a low ISO for life-sized macro photography. To get consistently sharp 1:1 images, your shutter speed will have to be 1/400 second or faster, and your aperture should stay at f/16 or smaller.
The best way to compensate is just to wait until your subject moves to a brighter location, although you can also position yourself to photograph the brightest angle for a particular subject. Sometimes, one side of a bug or plant will be lit more brightly than the other, which may not be obvious until you start shooting and check your meter’s readings.
Compare the two dragonfly images below. They were taken within ten minutes of each other — the biggest difference in the photos is my position relative to the sun.
For the first of these two images, the sun was blocked by a tree, meaning that the damselfly pair was in the shade. To compensate, I needed to set the exposure almost five stops (32x) brighter than in the second. Not only is the amount of light far greater in the second image, but so is the quality. In my opinion, the dramatic backlighting of the second image makes it significantly more interesting than the first.
The key to a successful macro image is to depict your subject with lighting and colors that enhance the aesthetic you have in mind. Sometimes this means that you want to use natural light in a way that stands out — as in the first image on this page — but often you will want to avoid calling attention to the light. If your goal is to depict your subject as serene and natural, you can use shade to soften the image’s shadows and create a more gentle background.
One thing that you may notice about the macro images on this page is that all four are taken at magnifications less extreme than 1:1. In other words, I didn’t magnify the subjects quite as much as my lens allows.
I chose to avoid maximum magnification for a two reasons. First, the composition — with larger subjects like damselflies and lizards, it is impossible to include the entire subject in a single 1:1 magnification image. For the images on this page, I wanted the composition to include the entire subject.
The second reason is that a lower magnification makes it easier to shoot a sharp macro image. As magnification increases, depth of field decreases and motion blur increases. At a more moderate magnification (like the above images), you can shoot at wider apertures and slower shutter speeds without getting an unsharp image. Since natural light is relatively dim (at least when compared to a high-powered flash), the benefits of a lower magnification are significant.
So, as a whole, natural light is great for macro photography when there is enough of it. However, for most high-magnification macro photographers, it just isn’t an option. Unlike with landscape or architectural photography, you will rarely be able to use a tripod for outdoor macro photography — most bugs simply move too much. Some photographers will try to use a tripod in the early morning (when bugs are more sluggish), but most will turn to artificial lighting methods instead.
Ring Lights
Ring lights have a mixed reputation in the circles of macro photography. On one hand, photographers generally consider the lighting from ring lights to be inferior to that of a normal flash; on the flip side, ring lights are one of the most common lighting solutions for macro photography, presumably because they are the best combination of price/performance available. So, which of these reputations is deserved? Neither, actually.
The lighting from ring lights is, aside from one small caveat, extremely nice. Look at the photo below as an example:
The light in this image is even, and the shadows look relatively natural. In general, I would consider this photo to be well-lit.
The caveat that I mentioned is visible in the spider’s eyes: ring-shaped catch lights. In this photo, at least, I think that the rings make the spider’s eyes look quite interesting. However, it becomes annoying to have bright circles bouncing off any shiny bug that you photograph — take the image below as an example:
I do like this photo, and the oval-shaped reflection on the fly does not stand out much, but these catch lights can become annoying when they appear in half your macro images.
Aside from that one problem, though, ring lights tend to produce fairly well-lit images. In terms of the quality of light, I would have no issue recommending a ring light to a beginning macro photographer. However, the quality of light is not the only important aspect in a macro photo — the quantity is equally important, and this is where ring lights generally fail.
When I set my Bolt VM-110 ring light to full power, it adds about one stop more light to the image when compared with natural light. More than anything, it just fills in shadows — natural light is doing most of the work in the images on this page. For a dedicated high-magnification macro photographer, this issue is all but fatal.
Compared to a dedicated macro photography flash, the difference in light output is tremendous. With a flash, my most common exposure will be 1/250 second at f/16 and ISO 100. With a ring light, I would be closer to 1/250 second at f/8 and ISO 800. This difference adds up quickly — with subjects that require an aperture of f/22, most ring lights simply cannot produce enough light to get a reasonable ISO.
So, yes, the lighting is nice in the images on this page. However, the ISOs I used were much higher than they would have been with a dedicated flash, making the benefits nearly irrelevant.
But, if regular flashes produce much harsher-looking images, is it even possible to light your macro photos in a way that is both bright and high-quality? Yep — and that’s where flash diffusers come in.
Diffusers
Diffusers are easy: they make a harsh light source softer. A macro diffuser is similar to the soft boxes used by portrait photographers, though significantly smaller. Typically, at least in macro photography, a diffuser is used to soften the light from an on-camera flash.
You can buy diffusers — the Vello Mini Softbox, for example — but most people choose to make their own through a DIY method. The difficult part about creating a flash diffuser is that you have to balance three things: diffuser size, light loss, and quality of light. Improving one of these three variables tends to hurt another, which makes it tough to create the ideal flash diffuser.
After designing several prototypes, I have made a diffuser that I like quite a bit for my own macro photography. I’m not claiming to have created the best design possible, but I believe that I have found a good balance between these three elements. Here is a picture of my diffuser setup:
Using two rubber clips, I attach a piece of translucent plastic (from a milk carton) to a duct tape ring around my lens hood, and I fire the on-camera flash in its direction. The other light modifiers are supplementary — the reflector on the bottom of the lens hood fills in shadows, whereas the reflector above the flash helps bounce more light towards my subject. This kit packs flat, and it doesn’t lose as much light as most diffusers. Below is a sample image:
It’s not bad, considering that (unlike my photos from the ring light), the image above is lit exclusively by artificial light. You can probably make something similar in about fifteen minutes.
However, even with a good diffuser, your lighting is limited to a single direction. Although this isn’t terrible, you can improve the quality of your light by switching to a dual-flash system. Especially if you still use diffusers, this may be the best possible solution for macro photography lighting.
Dual Flash Systems
For high-end studio photographers, it is common to use a minimum of three lights (a main light, a fill light, and a background/accent light) for portraiture, and sometimes five or more. Such a complex setup makes it easy to sculpt how the shadows and highlights fall on a subject, leading to more effective photos. It makes sense, then, that macro photographers also would prefer to use multiple lights whenever possible — and, though few systems allow the use of more than two flashes, some products exist that allow high-quality macro photography with two flashes.
I recently reviewed a new dual-flash system, the Venus Optics KX800, and I applauded its ability to position the two flashes so freely. When diffused, the quality of light from a dual flash can be in a league of its own.
When dual flash systems are freely positionable, they allow photographers the ability to sculpt a macro image’s light in much the same way that a portrait photographer works in a studio. For the image below, I used Nikon’s R1 flash system (see Tom Redd’s review of the more elaborate R1C1) to light the fly with two flashes: one SB-200 flash attached to a ring on my lens, and one SB-200 held in my hand above and behind the fly. The resulting image does not depict the most beautiful subject in the world, but it has among the best light of any artificially-lit macro photo I have taken.
The biggest drawback to a dual-flash solution is the price — the Nikon R1 system costs $469 from B&H, for example, and the Venus Optics KX800 costs $279 and has no TTL mode. Most photographers will already have a normal flash, too, which can be diffused without much difficulty at all.
Regardless of which method you prefer — natural lighting, a ring light, or a diffused flash — every choice has its strong points. Natural lighting can be beautiful and dramatic, a ring light is good at filling in the shadows of natural light, and flashes are the brightest options available. None of these lighting solutions is perfect, but each is capable of producing high-quality macro images. And, when you are being eaten alive by mosquitoes on a muggy summer’s day, it is comforting to know that your lighting techniques can make your effort worthwhile.
Great article and photos. Thanks.
Thank you, Robin! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Spencer, thanks for taking the time to write this article. Macro is my second love after landscape, and I got lucky and acquired a sigma 105mm (the latest model) at a very keen price thanks to a compliant ebay seller with failing eyesight.
My earlier attempts with dioptres, and then, with extension tubes, produced varied results, and getting the optics right sometimes caused me to neglect lighting. Now I have the right lens (or at least, the predictability that it brings to the table, optically speaking) I am finding, as you did, that lighting is in fact, something of a nightmare.
The exposure trilogy you mentioned is quite a nasty issue – highest possible shutter speed WITH small aperture WITH lowest possible ISO. In practice I have found myself kicking the ISO higher in order to get the other two in balance, and relied on DXO Optics Pro in post to sort out the noise that can result.
Having seen your home made diffuser solution, I am tempted to make one to use with my rather nice sunpak flashgun. As I shoot mostly landscape and macro, the sunpak has not been out of the house much in the past two years so it would be great if I could get a set up using it (as a resource I already own, as opposed to purchasing a dedicated kit). The Nikon kit is horrendously priced, and unfairly so when you consider what you get – two low output (compared to a hotshoe unit) flash heads, a lens adapter ring, and the hotshoe trigger unit.
Even at half the price I consider it overpriced, so I wouldn’t consider it as a hobby photographer. That your home made diffuser turns in well-lit results – and more importantly – repeatable, consistently and reliably, when compared to the Nikon kit, it makes no sense to blow the cost of a good lens on it, if you already have a flashgun as many, if not all of the forum readers will do.
Looking back, if I had paid more attention to lighting in the past, I might have got by without the macro lens, but now I have one, I would never part with it (until mother nature eventually pulls me off the planet, anyway).
Thanks for a very stimulating read, you covered all the sensible bases well, and though I have yet to get the superglue, milk carton, cokin lens ring and cooking foil out, I am pretty convinced that it will work a treat, and let me get that exposure trilogy, particularly those nasty high ISO’s, into a more usable and reliable ballpark.
Just one question, if I may. It concerns backgrounds. I don’t mean the immediate out of focus background (which catches the light from the flash anyway) but backgrounds say 36 inches or even further away. With the aperture closed down to suit the flash power, how do you prevent backgrounds simply being underexposed or even completely black? I am talking, for example, of shooting a fruit fly on a shrub, horizontally, with a view of the background in shot, more likely than not, through the shrub itself. How do you balance things up to avoid black backgrounds, or do you try to avoid them by re-positioning the shooting angle instead?
Thanks once again,
Ross
Just to answer your last point Ross: switch the flash to manual and experiment with different power settings for your main subject’s exposure, then alter the shutter speed, increasing its duration to bring in more of the ambient light for the background. There are several variables (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and subject distance) to juggle but, by limiting yourself to a narrow range of aperture and ISO settings (I tend to use f8 [a good compromise between sharpness and depth of field] and ISO 100 [to reduce noise to a minimum]), after a while you’ll get a feeling for which flash power and shutter speed combinations should work.
Hi Ian, I get what you are saying, but the issue I have is getting a small enough aperture to nail focus. A depth of field of only 2 to 4 mm is painful to work with, and opening up the aperture reduces it to unworkable limits, impossible to hold the camera steady or track live subjects.
Then, if it is a bug, it will be moving to some extent, so you have to lock down a pretty high shutter speed, as the high magnification of macro amplifies any subject or camera movement. This only leaves you with kicking the iso up higher (and reducing overall quality) in order to get the shot.
That said, it is better to have a slight quantity of noise than to have subject blur due to movement of camera or indeed, the subject. The reply from Spencer sums it up really, you have to resign yourself to black backgrounds, or avoid including middle to far distance backgrounds. I do find a lot of my shots, by re-positioning myself, produce shrubbery in bokeh form, giving a nice light green milky background. Sometimes there is no time to re-position due to the quick movement from a particular subject, and as Spencer says, you are pretty much stuck with that problem (if you want to get the subject sharp and use a high enough shutter speed etc).
Very challenging area of photography, is macro, and when you get a good shot, its very rewarding too. :)
Did I do something wrong, like including the URL of my Google+ page? My comment with its photo has disappeared.
Good luck with your macro setup, and thanks for your comments! I agree that the Nikon kit is vastly overpriced — truthfully, I don’t think it was worth it at all.
In terms of your background, you really only have two options. First, you can try to photograph the subject so that the background is only a few inches back, which is nice when it works. However, in most cases, you will have to live with a pitch-black background, assuming that you want the lowest ISO and smallest aperture possible.
This irritated me a lot at first, but I grew to like it. There is no good way to avoid it, so you might as well use it to your advantage. Below is one shot from my other macro article:
Wow! Great article. But the moment I saw where this was going (macro-portrait flash lighting!) I thought, “Sheesh, I still gotta figure out how to portrait flash people…and now I have to think about this for bugs!” (tiny lights, duct tape, home-made diffusers, getting in the bug’s face…!)
Really, though, what a great article. I do take issue (in that I simply disagree) with your thought that of the two shots of the damselflies the second was more interesting than the first. On the contrary, I found the first shot equally interesting; I could see the detail of what was really going on, something that was amazing to see (but the second, the silhouette was cool!)
Thanks again. And, just to note, if any article I have read has gotten me to consider more about macro photography, this one has.
Thanks, Keith!
That is true about the first shot — I like that it shows more detail in the damselflies than the other. It’s a matter of taste, I guess.
I’m glad that the article has led you to think more about macro photography! It’s a great genre, since you can practice it almost anywhere.
~Spencer
Lovely article, thanks for sharing. These examples are not Macro by definition, but they are really great. I am encouraged by the fact that we all go through such a similar process when it comes to Macro lighting. I get the feeling that there is a market for a product to support us all…
Thank you, Ben! I also would have liked a good (modular) diffuser when I was starting macro photography, but I do think that DIY solutions are quite good as well. Until I got my dual flash a few weeks ago, I used that diffuser for every one of my macro images without issue.
~Spencer
A great article–very informative. I do have a question, what are your thoughts on twin lights for macro? I currently have an inexpensive ring lite (power output adjustable), and have been thinking of purchasing a twin. Are they worth the extra expense?
I think that twin lights are the top tier of macro photography for a reason — their light really is high-quality. However, you may consider a regular flash instead. A normal flash is more versatile, and its quality of light can also be very nice if you make a good diffuser.
Here is my review over the well-priced Venus Optics KX800, which is the dual flash that I use: https://photographylife.com/reviews/venus-optics-kx800-macro-flash#disqus_thread
~Spencer
Like your idea. Materials on hand, including vinca flower by house. Photo in overcast with light rain, ISO 200, f/16 w/Sony HLV-F20AM flash @ -1.3 ev, Nex 7, Zeiss Touit 50/2.8 macro. Plastic is from a gallon windshield wash jug. Melted holes for shock cord using hot nail. Used an electronic digital caliper to measure lens for hole in plastic, and traced with the compass I still have from high school 55 years ago. Can probably trim this diffuser, and will also make one for my Minolta Maxxum 100mm f2.8 macro.
That’s a nice setup, and it looks pretty easy to make. That’s clever to put it on the lens hood when it is reversed, since you don’t lose any working distance (unlike the system I use).
Thanks for sharing!
~Spencer
Spencer, putting on the lens hood would work well too. This is on the lens barrel, out beyond the focus ring. Shock cord allows quick removal and it stores flat in camera bag.
I have had quite acceptable results using my SB800 mounted off-camera with its clip-on diffuser fitted.
Using Nikon’s CLS some bodies allow the use of the camera’s built-in flash or a second flash mounted on-camera together with an off-camera flash, giving two sources. Most of the Dx00 bodies can do this. If you set them up as different groups you can adjust the flash exposure compensation per group to change the relative brightness of these two sources.
Obviously, on-camera flash can throw lens-hood shadows onto the image when you are close to your subject so sometimes the lens hood has to come off.
Excellent article and lovely insight into taking macro images. Here are a few images using natural light! I live in a place blessed with plenty of light!
Mating Mangrove Tree Nymphs!
I have been shooting macro for years and use extension rings or a close up macro lens. With both of these I have found use of a flash almost impossible because you are so close to the subject that the flash cannot project light at te same angle you are shooting from. Would a ring flash be the only solution?
Simon,
A ring flash could work very well for you. The main issue with ring flashes is that they are not particularly bright, but that is less significant if your subject is extremely close to the light.
~Spencer
STUNNING, STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS !
Thank you so much, David!
Hello. I’m relatively new to macro and I’m having trouble with an issue not addressed in your article. I’m using a manual flash and want to use Live View. However, if I use the following settings, ISO 400ish, f/16, 1/200, – I can’t see the subject enough to adequately focus. I’ve attempted various set ups – use Aperture priority and then exposure compensation -2, or -3, which sometimes works well. Yet, in in this mode with ISO set to auto, I get the obvious problem – high ISO with low light macro.
Equipment: Canon 6D, 100mm L macro, 2x teleconverter, manual flash = getting I believe 2:1. I could be wrong on this.
So, how do I get adequate lighting for shooting bugs using Live View, or do I just use the view finder?
Hi Justin,
I don’t have a Canon camera, but my understanding is that the Canon Live View will show your image fully stopped-down (i.e., it will be darker at f/16 than at f/5.6), whereas your viewfinder will stay the same brightness at any aperture (unless you press the depth of field preview button). This is why I always use the viewfinder for macro photography.
Whether you use the viewfinder or live view, though, your final photographs will look exactly the same. This does lead to the tricky situation that you mentioned — it is tough to take macro photos with a reasonable ISO. I covered this problem to some degree with my macro photography tutorial (look at the checklist at the bottom of page three: https://photographylife.com/macro-photography-tutorial. Ultimately, for 2:1 macro images, your flash should provide 100% of the light in most situations.
If you are set at 1/200 second at f/16 with a flash, and your ISO is still quite high, then your flash simply is not powerful enough. At the same time, even a powerful flash means that you may be in the ISO 800 to ISO 1600 range. Don’t set anything to automatic mode for this type of photography except for the flash itself.
A final word of warning: Canon does not calculate aperture values in the same way that Nikon does. When you are at 2:1 magnification (and you are correct, your setup is 2:1), an aperture of f/16 actually behaves like f/48 — WAY too dark, not to mention extremely high in diffraction. Instead, for 2:1, you should use an aperture of f/5.6 or f/8. For 1:1, you should use an aperture of f/8 or f/11. This is a bizarre quirk of Canon’s, and one reason that I prefer Nikon for macro photography. I discuss this to a greater degree on page one of my macro photography tutorial (https://photographylife.com/macro-photography-tutorial).
Spencer
Hi Justin, I have a Canon 6d too, and your problem is that you have active the exposure simulation in live view, you can turn off this option in the Camera menu for a view like the viewfinder, without the exposure simulation.
Greetings
Now you can buy cheap chinese TTL ring flashes for less than $100 and they works well enough.
I think they are a good solution.