Wow! Just found this article and it was an awesome read. Really answered many of the questions I had as a newb just getting into true macro photography (have been doing extensive close up work, which is what heightened my desire to do “more.” Thank you for your great work here!
Simon Cowley
March 8, 2018 2:57 pm
Thank you for this informative article. I have been interested in wildlife since age eleven. I purchased a Canon EOS 750D a couple of years ago so that I can record what I find. I have set myself a personal goal of finding and identifying as many British species as I can. I have a 100mm prime macro and a ring flash. The flash isn’t quite powerful enough and I don’t like the highlights left by the hotshoe flash. The insects are more important to me than the photography, but I do want to produce reasonable images. I will try the home made diffuser option on the hotshoe. This looks like the best alternative I have seen. Fingers crossed….
Someone
October 26, 2016 4:02 am
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.
Justin
January 2, 2016 9:44 am
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?
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: photographylife.com/macro…y-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 (photographylife.com/macro…y-tutorial).
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
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?
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
Ravi
June 20, 2015 6:49 am
Mating Mangrove Tree Nymphs!
Ravi
June 20, 2015 6:39 am
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!
JXVo
June 15, 2015 2:57 am
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.
Richard Handler
June 7, 2015 2:56 pm
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).
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.
Wow! Just found this article and it was an awesome read. Really answered many of the questions I had as a newb just getting into true macro photography (have been doing extensive close up work, which is what heightened my desire to do “more.”
Thank you for your great work here!
Thank you for this informative article. I have been interested in wildlife since age eleven. I purchased a Canon EOS 750D a couple of years ago so that I can record what I find. I have set myself a personal goal of finding and identifying as many British species as I can. I have a 100mm prime macro and a ring flash. The flash isn’t quite powerful enough and I don’t like the highlights left by the hotshoe flash. The insects are more important to me than the photography, but I do want to produce reasonable images. I will try the home made diffuser option on the hotshoe. This looks like the best alternative I have seen. Fingers crossed….
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.
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: photographylife.com/macro…y-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 (photographylife.com/macro…y-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
STUNNING, STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS !
Thank you so much, David!
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
Mating Mangrove Tree Nymphs!
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!
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.
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.