Macro photography - part 6: Macro flash and other forms of lighting

Black ant "milking" aphids.  Taken with Nikon 105 mm macro and three ring mounted SB200 flashes.

Capturing light is, of course, the essence of photography.  It is difficult to photograph diminutive subjects where your very presence blocks out the light that is needed.  Even then, direct sunlight is harsh and throws harsh shadows, especially if it comes from the side.  Reflectors can mitigate shadows, but space and time limitations will likely result in failure.  The best solution is macro lighting.

Macro lighting involves mounting specialized flash units onto the end of the lens used in macro photography.  The flash can be connected to the camera wirelessly, through a tether on the hot shoe, or operated in manual mode.  The great thing about them is that you can approach your subject and photograph them in mere seconds, leaving them unaware of your presence.  No mucking about with tripods, reflectors, or other paraphernalia.  The best part, though, is that you can shoot at any aperture desired, with relatively high shutter speeds, and with low ISOs.

Above:  wireless macro flashes. The Nikon has built-in control while the Godox needs a transmitter.
Below left:  tethered macro ring light.  Below right:  hood for regular flash.

There are numerous solutions for adding light to a subject.  The best ones are dedicated macro units, both tethered and untethered.  There are also macro flash hoods that an external flash can use, or you can create your own.  All of them allow you to add light to a subject and typically allow unlimited aperture choices.  

Many cameras come with built in wireless transmission for an external flash that OEM flashes will respond to.  That's the case in the Nikon example above where the built in flash has to be raised while it can be deactivated in favour of the macro units.  Third party flashes, such as the Godox example above, rely on a transmitter attached to the hot shoe to function.  

Tethered units rely on a physical connection between camera and flash in the form of a cable.  This allows TTL function, as it does for the wireless flashes.  The tethered variety comes only as a ring flash rather than independent flashes as seen in the top two.  The advantage of a tethered system is that it is usually less expensive.

If money is an issue, there are always macro hoods or reflectors that will redirect a hot shoe mounted flash.  These tend not to be as effective, are bulky, and sometimes require a second hand to operate them.  I also don't care for the fact that insects and the like will easily be aware of your presence and there may be significant tinkering with the devices to get things just right.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com