Posts tagged #macro

Continuous Macro Lighting

When shooting macro, you need a lot of light. Normally you would use one or more (off-camera) flashes to facilitate this. The downside of a flash is that you only get the light when you press the shutter button. This can be challenging a relative low-light environment.

A solution for this is continuous lighting.

The traditional continuous lighting setups would get really hot. A couple of hundred Watts of power was nothing, and, in a small workspace, things could get hot (literally).
Thankfully, we have LED lights nowadays. Small (battery powered) devices with a lot of bright LED's, which are very affordable.

I bought a set of video lights on Amazon with 160 LED's (NanGuang CN-160) each. The devices are battery powered and give a lot of light. The video lights have a dimmer, so you can control the amount of light.

NanGuang CN-160 Video Lights

They take several types of batteries. Including 6 AA-type rechargeable batteries. The problem with the AA batteries is that they drain relatively fast, so I got a set of supported batteries, which normally go into a Sony camcorder (NP-F750F). Not the originals, but a cheaper knock-off. Another advantage of the larger batteries over the AA-types is that the amount of light produced is significant higher, and lasts for a longer period of time.

Batteries not included

The lights itself are relatively light, but with the batteries they tend to weigh around half a kilo each. So this is not a practical setup for handheld macro photography in the field.

To give you an idea of how much light they produce: The following photo was made in a dark room with one of the video lights on full power with the included diffuser. The camera (handheld) / lens settings were:

  • Camera: Fujifilm X-T1
  • Lens: Sigma 105mm F/2.8 Macro DG (F-mount with a X-adapter)
  • Shutter: 1/600
  • Aperture: F/8
  • ISO: 400

All I need right now is to create some sort of a flexible (portable) workspace with a way of positioning the lights independently around the subject.

UPDATE: I received my cheap flexible tripods and (even cheaper) ballheads by mail today. This should make the lighting for my macro photography a bit easier.

The total cost of this setup is around €150 (depending on the currency exchange rate).

Note: The setup is sufficient for the (cheap) LED-lights, but I wouldn't trust them with my Leica or Fuji camera.

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Willem and filed under Gear, Hardware, Photography, Tips'n Tricks and tagged CN-160 video lighting macro.

Fujifilm X-T1 Review

My interest in Fujifilm camera's was rekindled when they released the X-Pro1. When they announced and released the X-T1 this year I had to have one. Why, because it had everything that my old Nikon D300 doesn't have;

  • Lighter
  • Smaller
  • More Mpix (16 versus 12)
  • Lighter quality lenses
  • Capable of mounting Leica and Nikon lenses (through the use of third party adapters).
  • Tilt-screen
  • Electronic View Finder (EVF)

So my Nikon gear went on sale, and the X-T1 with the Fujinon 18-55mm 1:2.8-4 R LM OIS kitlens found a way into my camera bag, and I skipped the Sony A7(r).

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Posted on March 28, 2014 by Willem and filed under Gear, Photography, Review and tagged x-t1 macro kipon adapter Sigma Fujifilm.

Extension Tubes and Macro Photography

Soligor Extension TubesSince I have no real specialty (yet) in the field of photography I do own a macro lens (a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG). Playing around in the macro field I find that the 1:1 representation of the subject isn't always what you want. Sometimes you need, or want more magnification. There are several ways of achieving a higher magnification ratio. One of them is using so-called extension tubes.

Taken with a Lensbaby Composer and a 36mm Extension Tube

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Posted on November 14, 2010 by Willem and filed under Photography, Review and tagged Soligor extension tubes macro.