Post your macro photos here

Blue439

New member
Bee in flight (2020)

Agreed, this one is not very sharp, but it is in flight! :p And it is nicely lit.

For me, a major achievement! :rolleyes:

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S, 15–mm Fotodiox Pro extension tube. Flash lighting, handheld.

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Clovishound

Senior Member
Getting bees in flight, and sharp is very difficult. Heck, they move from flower to flower so quickly getting them on a flower can be a challenge.
 

Blue439

New member
Getting bees in flight, and sharp is very difficult. Heck, they move from flower to flower so quickly getting them on a flower can be a challenge.
Oh, I couldn’t agree more! :geek: Doing any better requires specialized equipment. We have a guy like that who’s become quite famous in France, his name is Ghislain Simard. He comes from an engineering background and designs his own custom-made laser-triggered flash barriers and gets amazing results. If you’re interested, his website is here, and he also has an extremely interesting Youtube channel (here) where he explains how he does it.

Of course he uses the most expensive gear Nikon has to offer. That said, he is a genuine DIY genius (at least he looks that way to me, but I can’t hammer a nail without ending up with two finger bandages) and I learned a ton from him that I will probably never put to practice. Of course his videos are in French but I’m sure you can get them close-captioned in English. I hope you will find him interesting. That also said, I never really understood how he gets the insects to fly through his barriers (which are not big, you will see in the videos) —lure them in some way?

Here is yet another bee from 2020, I show it because the attitude amused me: it is standing on a flower on its middle and hind legs, the front ones are just hanging there while it sucks on nectar from another flower... :p

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Flash lighting, handheld.

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Clovishound

Senior Member
Thanks for the link. I watched a couple of the videos. The English subtitles on one looked more like a random word generator than anything else. The others weren't great, but good enough to understand what was going on. I enjoy do it yourself projects that require some ingenuity to pull them off, but unfortunately, electronics are not in my wheel house. Back in the early 2000s I needed to take some underwater video of a 4,000 year old canoe a dive buddy and I discovered while diving a local river. I didn't have the money for a commercial rig, so I purchased the smallest camcorder I could afford and made a waterproof housing for it. The first couple iterations leaked like a sieve, but with some perseverance, I managed a working model that allowed me to get the footage I needed. I had a great time figuring everything out and manufacturing it with common tools and materials. Of course, today I could go down to Best Buy and purchase a hi definition Gopro for a few hundred dollars that fits in the palm of your hand. My rig was large and cumbersome, but it worked.

I suppose I will have to settle for the prefocus, spray and pray method for bees in flight.

I managed to get this one a couple months ago. This was pretty much just dumb luck as I was in the process of taking a shot of this hibiscus flower when a bee showed up. I was far enough back and using a small enough aperture to get him in focus.


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Blue439

New member
Flash-lit bee (2020)

Looking closely at this photo, I realized the bee does not seem to be resting its legs on anything, and therefore must have still been in flight when I took it, only just about to land.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR lens, FTZ adapter. Flash lighting, handheld.

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Blue439

New member
One last flash-lit bee (2020)

Last one, I promise ! :p

Gradient light from below, camera right.

Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 85mm, ƒ/1.8 S, 15–mm Fotodiox Pro extension tube. Flash lighting, handheld.

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Blue439

New member
Wild flower in the limelight (2020)

In my garden. I tried to make this humble little flower the star of the day by lighting it with a snooted cobra flash.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter, handheld. Flash lighting, single exposure.

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Blue439

New member
Deep valleys (2020)

Approx. 10:1 macro shot of a coral rock.

Nikon Z7, Laowa 100mm ƒ/2.8 2× macro lens, Novoflex BALPRO T/S bellows. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 8 focus-stacked exposures, set manually using a Novoflex Castel XQ II focusing rail. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

New member
Surgical (2020)

The inner workings of my Leatherman Surge multi-tool. 5:1 (roughly) macro shot.

Nikon Z7, Laowa 100mm ƒ/2.8 2× macro lens, manual focus, Novoflex BALPRO T/S bellows. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 12 focus-stacked exposures, set manually using a Novoflex Castel XQ II focusing rail. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

New member
Snow-peaked mountains? (2020)

No. Runny camembert cheese by Le Rustique, one of my favorite brands!

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm ƒ/2.8 macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 30 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

New member
Closeup of a nice piece of gear (2021)

Leofoto VH–30R two–way panoramic head, a very good head, almost as good as the Acratech at a fraction of the price. I use it, in combination with a leveling base, for general/landscape photography, and I do not do enough of that these days to justify the purchase of the Acratech.

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, FTZ adapter. Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Flash lighting. Composite shot made up of 20 focus-stacked exposures, set automatically using the built-in function on the camera. Stack processed with Helicon Focus.

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Blue439

New member
Lighthouse on a Stamp (2022)

A 10:1 macrophoto of part of a French stamp (original size of the reproduced part: 1×1 cm) showing the iconic Breton lighthouse of Ar Men (“The Stone”).

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor Z MC 105mm ƒ/2.8 S macro lens, Novoflex BALPRO T/S bellows (the front part slightly shifted and tilted). Gitzo tripod, Arca-Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Natural light. Nine focus-stacked exposures set manually using a Novoflex Castel XQ II focusing rail. Stack processed with Helicon Focus software.

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Blue439

New member
Old currency (2022)

This old French coin is a double tournois, minted in 1634 under King Louis XIII. It is in reasonably good condition and should fetch between 100–200 euros on the market. The whole coin, illustrated in the insert, is about 1 centimeter in diameter, and the part that I reproduced is therefore 2.5–3 millimeters in actual size. The reproduction ratio was probably around 12:1, and stacking focus manually was a bitch!

Nikon Z7, Micro-Nikkor Z MC 105mm ƒ/2.8 macro lens, Novoflex BALPRO T/S bellows. Natural light. 12 focus-stacked exposures, set manually using the Novoflex Castel XQ II focusing rail on which the bellows sits. Stack processed with Helicon Focus software.

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Blue439

New member
Mad toppings (2022)

Background provided by a slice of whole wheat Harry’s flat bread; slotted into it is a solid gold 20–franc coin from 1911, and on top of that is a mini gherkin by Maille of France.

Nikon Z7 II, Micro-Nikkor Z MC 105mm ƒ/2.8 S macro lens. Gitzo tripod, Arca–Swiss Cube C1 geared head. Composite photograph made up of 60 focus-stacked exposures set using the built–in function in the camera. Stack processed by Helicon Focus, Method C.

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Blue439

New member
Built like a Tank (ages ago)

The sapphire-topped crown on my Cartier Tank watch. No EXIF, and no idea when this was shot, but certainly many years ago, obviously with a Nikon camera (maybe the D3?), and necessarily with the Micro-Nikkor 105mm, ƒ/2.8 G VR macro lens, since that was the only macro lens I ever had back then. Natural light, because I didn’t practice flash lighting back then either!

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