A Different View

I saw a small Sunflower in the yard with the sun striking it from the front. I thought it looked interesting so I went out with a Sigma 150mm macro lens to see what I could come up with. It was nice, but not great. Looked like the usual Sunflower shot. Then I went to the back side and thought it looked more interesting from behind. The sun was coming from the front so I was shooting into the shadows. I used a small 12 inch silver/gold collapsable reflector using the silver side to bring out the textures in the green stem and to also highlight them. There was a green bush in the background which I just kept as a smooth green background to contrast with the yellow petals. I really like the different look with the textures and greens and yellows. After working with the main flower and seeing the textures on the stem, I switched to the unopened buds with the textures to see what I came up with.

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Winged Wonder – Butterfly Wing at 5X

Here I was trying to get as close as I could to this butterfly wing with a Canon 1D MkIV and a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. This is a 1x to 5x macro zoom (on a full frame camera). On a Canon 1D MkIV with a 1.3 crop sensor it is more like a 1.3X to 6.5X macro zoom. The MP-E 65mm is definitely a special purpose lens and is a little funky to use. Sometimes it seems like your subject is right up against the front element. Here I backed the zoom down a little and moved the camera in on a rail until I achieved focus. I am guessing it was about 5X. Usually when I am done I photograph a small tape measure and compare it to the image of the sensor. I did not have an opportunity this time to do this. With this extreme close focus it is critical to get as parallel as possible to your subject to achieve focus as much as possible over the entire frame. The MP-E 65mm has a very limited depth of field so it is important. I had the lens set to f/16 and still had a very narrow depth of field. I used an off camera flash above and to the side and a small white reflector for fill flight. I also uploaded a closer crop of the same image.

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