MikeBrum.com

As planned, I hit up the butterfly house at Franklin Park Zoo again today. I spent probably about 2 hours shooting total and walked away with what I think are some of my best shots yet. I’m very pleased with the progress that I’ve made this summer shooting macro. Given where I was at towards the end of last summer, I don’t think I have anything to feel bad about. I think next spring I’ll be picking up the Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. It’s very specialized and really requires you to know how to shoot high-magnification macro, so that’s what I’ve been trying to practice this summer.

I uploaded 28 new photos to my site. I’ve only included 12 here – so if you like what you’re seeing, then definitely head over to my image gallery and check out the whole lot.

For those interested, these are shot on a 30D with the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro (probably my favorite lens) with a 36mm extension tube. For a flash, I’m using the MT-24EX. You might notice that the backgrounds are mostly dark. This is due to a particularly small aperture for this set. This is due to the tightrope that needs to be walked in macro – a small aperture gives you more depth of field, but you expose less of the background. If you use a larger aperture for more ambient exposure, you get much shallower depth of field. With the super tiny depth of field that you get with macro, this decision can be really important. It’s a big exercise in compromise.

Enjoy the images and don’t hesitate to check out the rest.

Tomorrow is the seal dive!!!