Macro and me - Big beauty in a small world.

Beetle, praying mantis, stonefly larva, fruit fly.

If you have been following my photography at all, you would know that I love wildlife.  Much of that tends to be birds because they are everywhere and show an astonishing diversity.  And they are present all year.  

The macro world presents a very different picture (literally).  Insects are only active when it is warm.  They do not announce themselves as birds do with calls and flashes of colour.  And they are small; so small in fact that you need specialized equipment to get decent photos of them.

It is possible to photograph invertebrates without macro equipment as many of my butterfly prove, but it does increase the chances of getting a good photograph showing lots of detail.  I want more than just a gross image that may facilitate identification but fails at showing the complex beauty of these creatures.  This is where good macro equipment comes in.

There are hundreds of things you can buy to do macro photography, and although each piece will allow you to achieve some particular goal, it is a lot of stuff to be hauling around.  If you are really interested in macro, you should consider two very basic but important pieces of equipment.  A macro lens and a macro flash.

A new macro lens and flash will set you back about $2000 (CAD), but you can get the same stuff used for about half of that.  Although I have bought many used lenses and had good success with them, used flashes (especially macro ones) are far and few between.  The best plan would be to buy a used macro lens and a new macro ring flash, probably third party.

Brand name stuff is always nice, but there are good third party manufacturers out there.  Tamron makes an excellent 90 mm vacro lens.  Gordox makes an excellent macro ring light.  Together you will spend less than $1500 and end up with some excellent gear.

Most of my macro photography is achieved using a Nikon 105 mm Micronikor macro lens and a r200 set of macro flashes.  Although you can buy macro lenses with focal lengths of 40, 50, 60, 90, 105, and 200 mm, the one I have had the best success with is my 105.  You can use a regular hot shoe-mounted flash to do macro photography, the results pale visibly when you compare them to what you can achieve with a lens-mounted macro flash.

The combination will produce sharp images with good colour and detail.

There are many things to learn about taking good shots when you have the right equipment; it's not just a matter of pressing a button and being able to shout, "That was easy!"  It takes time, patience, and some knowledge to successfully employ the equipment.  However, it is always worth the results.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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