# A few bugs from the other day



## kalgra (May 6, 2016)




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## jcdeboever (May 6, 2016)

Nice set

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## kalgra (May 6, 2016)

Thanks! Im curious if these seem a little dark or a tad under expose? I notice on my pad all my pics are a bit dark for my liking. My main monitor they look like I intended them. Im curious if the brightness on my main monitor is off.


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## kalgra (May 6, 2016)

Also thinking I should have cropped out the red flower buds on the right of the last one now that Im looking at it again. Thoughts?


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## jl1975 (May 6, 2016)

Those are some nice shots.  I particularly like the second one.  I'm curious as to how close you actually were and what lens/camera you were using.  I have an crop body and the Nikon 105 macro lens but I don't know if I would want to be that close to something that stings/bites.


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## zombiesniper (May 6, 2016)

Great set.



kalgra said:


> Thanks! Im curious if these seem a little dark or a tad under expose? I notice on my pad all my pics are a bit dark for my liking. My main monitor they look like I intended them. Im curious if the brightness on my main monitor is off.



Exposure looks great on all of them.


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## kalgra (May 6, 2016)

jl1975 said:


> Those are some nice shots.  I particularly like the second one.  I'm curious as to how close you actually were and what lens/camera you were using.  I have an crop body and the Nikon 105 macro lens but I don't know if I would want to be that close to something that stings/bites.



Thanks! I used a canon mp-e 65mm 5:1 at f/16 on a canon 6D and these shots ranged from about 2.5-3.5 times magnification which at f/16 and 3x magnification has an effective aperture of about f/64 so a lot of light is needed to get that dof without stacking. The end of the lense was a little less than 2 inches away from the subject.


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## kalgra (May 6, 2016)

Oh and I should mention the caterpillar in the last one was a different setup canon 70D crop with a canon 100mm 2.8L 1:1


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## kalgra (May 6, 2016)

zombiesniper said:


> Great set.
> Exposure looks great on all of them.



Thanks I was hoping it was just the brightness on my iPad or something.


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## Scruffy (May 8, 2016)

Used to be "Thanks for the Memories" Couple of bad dreams here for me. All nice bright shots. Are you using any Focus bracketing setups or software? It really helps with the DOF. Cheers Pete


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## kalgra (May 8, 2016)

Scruffy said:


> Used to be "Thanks for the Memories" Couple of bad dreams here for me. All nice bright shots. Are you using any Focus bracketing setups or software? It really helps with the DOF. Cheers Pete



These shots were for the most part a single frame straight out of camera. I'm saving up for a stackshot and will use it with zerene for dead subjects, but I like shooting live critters whenever possible and I just don't know how to do that yet with live bugs. I tried doing a 6 frame stack with a bee that was cold and I didn't think was moving at all but when I got it into the computer there were a couple frames where the bee did move enough that the stacked image was messed up. Maybe there is a way to fix that or perhaps zerene would have done a better job I don't know. For now the best way I have found to get dof on little bugs like this is to magnify beyond 1:1 at f/16 and flood the shot with as much light as possible. I will often use two additional flashes with soft boxes in addition to a ring flash to do that.

I'm still learning though. Only been at this for about a year now. The lens I use defenitely gets soft at f/16 especially under higher magnification. It seems like f/5.6-8 is the sweet spot for this lens at higher magnification and I'll be really excited to see what kinds of stacked shots can get with that with a nice focus rail.

All that said I do use Lightroom and photoshop to process from raw. While these images are fairly close to what came out of camera I do use Lightroom to color correct to my liking, balance highlights and shadows, and add a touch of clarity, and sharpness. I use photoshop for spot removal as the lens I use most the time has an uncanny ability for showing you even the microscopic dust particles on the lens and sensor. I also use photoshops spot healing and patching tools to remove any distracting little bits of lint or dirt that might be on the subject.


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