photokimbo

Last Saturday I had the good fortune to attend my second Trekabout workshop, the half-day Macro Experience, held by professional photographers Michael Snedic and Mark Rayner at the Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens in Brisbane, Australia. I had a fantastic time with a really lovely group of people. The workshop kicked-off at 8am, with the usual herding of photographers in the car park. Once we were all assembled we proceeded into the gardens for formal introductions, a review of our kit, and some words of wisdom and encouragement from our tutors.

My first challenge was fungi, and I really do mean challenge. I'd never tried to photograph anything so small in a natural setting before, and I was quite suprised just how mentally and physically demanding it can be (these little guys were only about 2.5cm tall). Following some excellent tutelage from Mark on balancing exposure and controlling Depth of Field, I spent about an hour working to get the shot below. Mark's demonstration on how to use the zoom feature in Live View made a massive difference - it was one of those "well, of course! why didn't I think of that..?" moments. I ended up making good use of natural light with a bit of help from my handy 80cm 7-in-1 collapsable reflector. Quite happy with the result, though I would have liked the Depth of Field to extend back toward the camera just a little more, and probably could have achieved that without too much noise using f/36 or smaller at ISO 800.

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/10s, f/32, ISO 400

Before I knew it we were being rounded up for a quick drive up to the summit of Mt Cootha and a spot of morning tea, but before we left I managed to grab a quick shot of the following, again making good use of the reflector and natural light (and using a faster shutter speed to combat a few troublesome gusts of wind).

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/800s, f/5.6, ISO 200

Some great discussions started up over coffee, and of course the iPad had to come out for a bit of show and tell, too (just so happened I had a copy of Michael's Australian Photography article on Macro, which contained one of his photographs he was describing.. and you know what they say about pictures!). It was a great Q&A opportunity, with gear being passed around and everyone having the chance to see first-hand what kind of a difference lens focul length can make, and then again with a set of extension tubes. Worth noting that whilst extension tubes will allow you to get that bit closer to your subject, they will also cut down the amount of light reaching the sensor (same with teleconverters). Seems a fast lens is definitely in order here.

After morning tea it was back down the mountain for round two, and with the skies looking rather ominous, it was time to try out my brand new Orbis and Nikon SB-600 Speedlight. I'm very new to using off-camera flash, let alone a ring flash, so over the past couple of weeks I've been learning as much as I could about the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS). To be honest, my expectations were pretty high - both of myself and of the Orbis, but I was fairly confident my efforts would be rewared if I could keep it together in the moment. Trying to keep it simple this time around, I stuck primarily with flash settings of TTL BL at 85mm, using Aperture Priority Mode and just working the aperture to control the light. In retrospect, this wasn't the smartest approach. I would have been much better off sticking with a very small aperture, such as f/36, and using ISO, Exposure and Flash Compensation to achieve the same lighting but with a greater Depth of Field. Oh well, live and learn! I'm still really impressed with the results. The following were all taken using the Orbis with the SB-600.

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/60s, f/32, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/60s, f/16, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/60s, f/32, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lense, 1/60s, f/16, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/160s, f/10, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, 1/60s, f/22, ISO 200

So there we go, another fantastic Trekabout workshop. In two weeks time I'll be heading down to Lamington National Park for their weekend workshop at O'Reillys, which should be something quite special indeed. Can't wait!

All photographic images and content are Copyright © Kim Stevens, 2010. All rights reserved.