Marvellous Macro page 7

Mike McNamee returns to his roots in microscopy

Stance is vital to the creation of blur-free macro images. The photo series shows some good and bad stances. At the top, the righthand stance is an improvement on the left as the legs are braced to reduce body movement to front and back. In the middle, the lefthand stance is extremely poor, the arms are not braced to the body and the weight of the head makes holding steady almost impossible. The right-hand of the pair is better - the buttocks are lowered and the elbows braced into the thighs reducing the movement. The bottom pair show a very useful technique, using a cane as a brace by gripping it to the camera and planting it on the floor. This will also reduce focus hunting if you have auto focus turned on.

DARK FIELD ILLUMINATION

This is a technique taken directly from microscopy and adapted for macro nature use. The ease with which it can be set up belies the striking nature of the images you can produce. It is not just limited to live, aquatic insects but may also be used to great effect for thin slices of fruit such as kiwi-fruit. All you need to build a set-up are a camera, macro system, two flashguns, a sheet of glass, some black card and some Araldite®. The diagram explains the lighting arrangement. The characteristic effect is produced because only rim-lighting reaches the subject. If the subject is thin and/or translucent, so much the better. If you fill the ‘aquarium’ with just a shallow depth of water, the subject is unable to move in and out of focus. If the aquarium is kept small then you force the subject to stay in, or close, to your field of view, thus guaranteeing more chances of usable shots. Despite this, if you take on tadpoles and froglets expect quite a lot of fun and a requirement for some saintly patience, they can easily climb or hop out! In the examples shown, real pond water has been used, complete with filamentary algae and quite a lot of un-identified detritus. If this is confusing your image then you might try rainwater. Exposure judgement has to be from the camera histogram as it is impossible to predict how the rim-lighting is going to affect the subject – much easier with digital than film, of course!

CAPTIONS
ABOVE: This ‘newtpole’ is displayed on the page at life size. Shot on film at approximately 1:2 using a Nikon FE and a 105mm f2.8 manual focus Micro
Nikkor.
ABOVE RIGHT: A dytiscid larvae attacks a small minnow. These fearsome, heavily armed larvae change into the diving beetles.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Two larvae of the common darter, showing both the top view and the underside. The upper larvae has a small leech hitching a
ride!

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Photo Quote: When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without. - Ansel Adams