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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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

• 2 * CN-160 LED Lights: €52
• 2 * Falcon batteries (SONY compatible NP-F750-F incl. charger): €75
• 2 * 10-inch Flexible Desktop Digital Camera Tripod: €18
• 2 * POPLAR Octopus 1/4 Monopod / Tripod Ball Head: €9

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

The 4K Video Enabler

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Differences in resolution

The biggest thing during The Consumers Electronics Show in Vegas (CES) was the 4K televisions. 4K is a reference to the resolution. Current TV's (LCD/LED/OLED/Plasma) usually have a resolution of 1920*1080 pixels (1080p). The 4K versions have 4 times the resolution. Capable of displaying UltraHD content at an affordable price. These TV's sell for $1000 - $2000.

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NaughtyAmerica offers 4K downloads

All very nice, but the average Joe has no real access to 4K content. Sure, there are some videos on YouTube in 4K, but most of the time it's just plain old 1080p (if you're lucky). The current HD media (BluRay) isn't officially certified for 4k content, so the only alternative at the moment is downloadable content. Guess which industry is on top of things? (pun intended).

As with almost everything in the past (VHS / Internet / DVD), the porn industry is one of the first to embrace the new technology. Now all we need is fiber to the home with a minimum of 100Mbps to enjoy the new format.

Lumix LX3 in Poor Light Conditions

Metallica @ AhoyLast Monday I visited the Metallica Death Magnetic Tour concert in Ahoy, Rotterdam (NL). A relatively small establishment for a rock band like Metallica, but great for the fans (if you got tickets), since the podium was centered in the middle of the arena. So everyone was relatively close to the stage.

I brought my Lumix LX3 for this occasion (since I won't be allowed entrance with my D300 + 70-200mm lens). This was the first time I brought a (P&S) camera to a concert, so I had no idea of what to expect of the quality.
I must say that I did try several settings, but the iA (Intelligent Auto) mode left me with the best images. Downside is that this mode produces only JPEG's and no RAW files. The A, P, S and M modes are too susceptible to the light changes (over- or underexposed, or just blurry images), and the light conditions change a lot (almost every second).

The movie-mode of the camera performs relatively well. Extremely bright lights results in vertical lines across the movie. The audio is not that good, but hey... it's a digital still camera with filming capabilities.

The only downside of the camera was (and still is) that it lacked zooming to 400 or 600mm :).

The photographic results can be seen on my flickr page.

Unpredictable Exposures

When shooting from a tripod and/or with Live View on your (d)SLR you may find strangely exposed photos. Some are darker than others.

This could be related to the light seeping in through the ocular on your camera. Normally you have your eye against the ocular, but when you use e.g. Live View on your camera, you watch the LCD. This leaves the ocular 'open', and unwanted light might enter the camera and screw up the exposure of the photos you're taking.

I created a small example were I shot several high-speed images (in Aperture priority mode) while I used a small flashlight to pass a beam of light over the back of the body (e.g. car lights passing by in low light circumstances). I made sure that I also 'touched' the ocular with the beam of light.

You can see that the exposure goes from normal to dark, and back to 'normal'.

I haven't found any real differences when you're shooting under normal circumstances, but when (a strong) light is shining in or on the ocular, you might be in trouble.