Frogography - feedback please about macro & lighting

[Marsu42]

Last weekend I shot some frogs in a pond, setup was my trusty old 60d, a 100mm macro-cpl and a flash for fill on a bracket (to quickly switch from left to right). I was using Tv with max. x-sync of 1/250s and iso 800, the max. you can get away with on corp. The resulting Av was usually f6.5-f11-ish.

Since I'm planing to go there once more next weekend if the weather is ok, I'd like to ask you all for some feedback on what I can improve - framing, lighting, postprocessing, everything really since I'm still learning to do stuff. One thing I'm not entirely happy about is the double reflection from sun and flash, but this cannot be helped since I need the fill flash in noon light?

Note that these are live, happy and free frogs. Thanks for any feedback and helping out!

 

[tolusina]

You might be able to knock out one unwanted reflection with a polarizer.

 

[Marsu42]

You might be able to knock out one unwanted reflection with a polarizer.

I was using a polarizer (cpl) or it would have looked even more reflective (nearly blue-white). For most of the shots I had the polarizer on 1/2 setting - the problem with full cpl is that removes the water *entirely*, it looks like in an indoor aquarium and you don't see any reflections at all.

 

[tolusina]

I'd try more experimentation, see if I could knock down the flash's reflection.
Seems I recall Ansel Adams sometimes polarized his lights, then knocked down reflections from those polarized lights with another polarizer on his lens.

 

[Marsu42]

Seems I recall Ansel Adams sometimes polarized his lights, then knocked down reflections from those polarized lights with another polarizer on his lens.

This is really interesting, I'll try to research how this works - question is if it's possible with a circular polarizer in front of the lens or if only a non-cpl works which afaik would disable the af system. Of course I can also remove the 2nd reflection is post most of the time w/o anyone noticing, though I left it in for demonstration purposes this time.

 

[RobertG.]

Axel, wait for better natural light. Weak sun light in the morning or early evening would be best. At the moment the background looks like it was an overcast day. The colors are pretty dull. The subject (the frog) shows a different lighting than the background, caused by the flash. That's not appealing to me. Get rid of the flash. Warm sun light would look better because all colors would be warmer and more vivid. These rather cold colors and too tight framing don't appeal to me.

 

[Marsu42]

Axel, wait for better natural light. Weak sun light in the morning or early evening would be best.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll keep "warm and vivid colors" in mind, changing the postprocessing a bit should also help here (I was working on an uncalibrated monitor when doing these). The framing is another problem, I have to shoot more loose since standing waist-high in water doesn't always result in good horizon level and you need to rotate the image in post, meaning too tight cropping.

The problem is the shutter time, for macro shots and an acceptable depth of field you need bright light or getting a sharp image @100% crop is pure luck.

Concerning the flash: For comparison some image links from google with this frog, many people seem to be able produce beautiful, vivid and appealing pictures with natural light, though a lot also use flash just like me:

https://www.google.de/search?q=edible+frog&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NYGGU4aQNcjZ4QT-nIDIDA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1025&bih=497&dpr=1.33#q=teichfrosch&tbm=isch

https://www.google.de/search?q=edible+frog&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=NYGGU4aQNcjZ4QT-nIDIDA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1025&bih=497&dpr=1.33

 

[privatebydesign]

Seems I recall Ansel Adams sometimes polarized his lights, then knocked down reflections from those polarized lights with another polarizer on his lens.

This is really interesting, I'll try to research how this works - question is if it's possible with a circular polarizer in front of the lens or if only a non-cpl works which afaik would disable the af system. Of course I can also remove the 2nd reflection is post most of the time w/o anyone noticing, though I left it in for demonstration purposes this time.

I don't recall Ansel Adams ever using lights, it certainly wasn't in any of his most prominent work.

But I digress, I use polarized sheets on my lights and a polarizer on my camera for some very high gloss product work, but the truth is it is very inefficient, it costs over two stops of light, and it is fraught with colour issues, even with very expensive polarizers and camera profiling can't sort it out. It is strongly not recommended by serious art reproducers for this reason. Sometimes you just have to wait to get the light right or you can get a bit closer.

Took this uncropped shot in my garden the other day, damn Cuban Tree Frogs, they eat everything but the snakes! 100mm macro with a 600EX off camera with a Rouge Flashbender in my left hand and ST-E3-RT on camera. One tip, if you get this low with a tripod don't forget to tighten the head or the camera and lens will slowly tilt down into the water, turns out the front of the 100L Macro can take a plunge. DOH!

 

[mackguyver]

Last weekend I shot some frogs in a pond, setup was my trusty old 60d, a 100mm macro-cpl and a flash for fill on a bracket (to quickly switch from left to right). I was using Tv with max. x-sync of 1/250s and iso 800, the max. you can get away with on corp. The resulting Av was usually f6.5-f11-ish.

Since I'm planing to go there once more next weekend if the weather is ok, I'd like to ask you all for some feedback on what I can improve - framing, lighting, postprocessing, everything really since I'm still learning to do stuff. One thing I'm not entirely happy about is the double reflection from sun and flash, but this cannot be helped since I need the fill flash in noon light?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/83678576@N02/sets/72157644483327150/

Note that these are live, happy and free frogs. Thanks for any feedback and helping out!

I'll take a better look at your photos tomorrow, but the first thing I would say is - don't shoot at Noon if you can help it. A flash will help and can definitely overcome the light, but why fight it?

Also, privatebydesign, we have those everywhere in Florida and they are such a pain. It turns out that my cats are pretty good at dispatching them Nice shot of this one, however!

 

[tolusina]

......
I don't recall Ansel Adams ever using lights........

Sure, you're right as you always are.

 

[Marsu42]

A flash will help and can definitely overcome the light, but why fight it?

Your feedback is very welcome!

As written above I don't see how I can manage to take these shots handheld in dimmer light: these frog don't just sit there like your infamous Florida models seem to do but swim and hop around most of the time so a tripod is out of the question - I could try a monopod though.

My 100L lens has IS, but with ~1/60s shutter speed and below the handheld keeper rate sinks to rock bottom. I need max. x-sync even on static subjects for reliable 100% crop sharpness (though of course this doesn't matter for the test upload size I chose). With thinner dof, wouldn't even get the eye in focus (see sample below with f7.1). Much higher iso in dimmer light or for deeper dof results in too much noise.

Btw these European "Teichfrösche" are not invasive, but are very friendly animals, just eat flies and some even like to be petted on the back

 

[privatebydesign]

......
I don't recall Ansel Adams ever using lights, it certainly wasn't in any of his most prominent work. (Please use a complete quote to maintain context.)

Sure, you're right as you always are.

You are right, I was wrong, well sort of. In his 5 volume 1950's book he did write about artificial light.

Now do you recall any of his prominent works that actually use it, as per my original comment?

 

[mackguyver]

A flash will help and can definitely overcome the light, but why fight it?

Your feedback is very welcome!

As written above I don't see how I can manage to take these shots handheld in dimmer light: these frog don't just sit there like your infamous Florida models seem to do but swim and hop around most of the time so a tripod is out of the question - I could try a monopod though.

My 100L lens has IS, but with ~1/60s shutter speed and below the handheld keeper rate sinks to rock bottom. I need max. x-sync even on static subjects for reliable 100% crop sharpness (though of course this doesn't matter for the test upload size I chose). With thinner dof, wouldn't even get the eye in focus (see sample below with f7.1). Much higher iso in dimmer light or for deeper dof results in too much noise.

Btw these European "Teichfrösche" are not invasive, but are very friendly animals, just eat flies and some even like to be petted on the back

Marsu, it was late when I wrote you last night and I just had a chance to take a better look at your photos. I think they turned out well, particularly for your first time shooting them. The additional information is interesting and we have more than our share of invasive species in Florida as well! Also, that's funny that they like to be pet on the back! Here's what I think you did well:
- Your fill flash was balanced well
- You captured their personalities well in many of the shots
- You got the peak moment of their inflated cheeks in those shots
- The eyes are all in focus
- A couple of the portraits of single frogs came out really well with clean backgrounds
- You didn't submerge any of your gear

My suggestion to shoot in dimmer light is for many reasons. First of all, all wildlife is more active in the morning and as a result offers more interesting behavior like feeding and mating during the morning and evenings. Second, the flash is plenty bright to light the frogs if you get close enough (as your clearly are) and allows you to get better subject isolation (i.e. brighter subject, darker background). Without the sun competing, your flash actually has more power to illuminate. Also, you probably won't need the CPL if it's early enough, which will give you ~2 stops back. The key is getting the flash off axis enough to avoid the water and eye reflection (RE: family of angles). This last one applies to mid-day shooting as well. Use the CPL to filter the majority of the water reflection (leave some for realism or filter fully for dramatic effect) and then get the flash off camera at a distant angle to eliminate the reflections.

Here are some additional thoughts:
- Don't be afraid to crop - if you get further back, you can use a larger aperture while retaining the same DOF, plus you can get a lower effective angle without submerging.
- Keep the background as clean as possible or incorporate the background. Play with larger apertures and intentionally OOF areas.
- Consider moving the frog onto a branch or something. I don't touch the subjects I shoot, but I know many photographers do this with reptiles to get a clean shot. It's an ethical / personal thing, but you can always use the "invasive species" argument
- Also, don't be afraid of f/11, 16, and even 22. Yes diffraction does soften the image, but it's not the instant death that so many DSLR shooters fear. Of course you'll need more light, but all of photography is a trade off
-When shooting more than one subject (like your pet photos) try to line up their eyes or shoot them when they are far enough apart so the distant one can be blurred. Try to avoid blurring another frog in the foreground

Hopefully that will help a bit and while we have some slower frogs here in Florida, be glad that you don't have alligators or venomous water snakes!

 

[Marsu42]

My suggestion to shoot in dimmer light is for many reasons. First of all, all wildlife is more active in the morning and as a result offers more interesting behavior like feeding and mating during the morning and evenings. Second, the flash is plenty bright to light the frogs if you get close enough (as your clearly are) and allows you to get better subject isolation (i.e. brighter subject, darker background). Without the sun competing, your flash actually has more power to illuminate. Also, you probably won't need the CPL if it's early enough, which will give you ~2 stops back. The key is getting the flash off axis enough to avoid the water and eye reflection (RE: family of angles).

Thanks all for your feedback, it was very helpful!

I'd very much to get the flash off-camera as much as possible, but alas, the reality is that with wildlife I usually don't have the time so the bracket solution has to make do. For some of my horse shots, I manage to put another 600rt next to the animal though which does result in much better photos.

 

[mackguyver]

My suggestion to shoot in dimmer light is for many reasons. First of all, all wildlife is more active in the morning and as a result offers more interesting behavior like feeding and mating during the morning and evenings. Second, the flash is plenty bright to light the frogs if you get close enough (as your clearly are) and allows you to get better subject isolation (i.e. brighter subject, darker background). Without the sun competing, your flash actually has more power to illuminate. Also, you probably won't need the CPL if it's early enough, which will give you ~2 stops back. The key is getting the flash off axis enough to avoid the water and eye reflection (RE: family of angles).

Thanks all for your feedback, it was very helpful!

I'd very much to get the flash off-camera as much as possible, but alas, the reality is that with wildlife I usually don't have the time so the bracket solution has to make do. For some of my horse shots, I manage to put another 600rt next to the animal though which does result in much better photos.

Marsu, what is the bracket solution you're talking about? For me, I try to shoot early in the day to avoid the need for flash, but when I use it, it's simply a off camera flash cord. I hold the flash in one hand, camera in the other. Nothing fancy, and it gets heavy & shaky fast with some lenses if it's not on a tripod, but it works well.

 

[kphoto99]

Have you considered using the HSS mode of your flash. If you raise the shutter speed to 1/4000 you will darken the background almost to black.

 

[Marsu42]

Have you considered using the HSS mode of your flash. If you raise the shutter speed to 1/4000 you will darken the background almost to black.

In my experience single-Flash HSS at that shutter speed doesn't have enough power at noon (next to draining your battery in no time).

In this case, I also *wanted* the "environmental" look of the frogs, after all they are camouflaged animals and should immerse in the surrounding. Usually I darken the background a bit with a vignette, but too much subject-background separation makes it look like an "at home" zoo-aquarium studio setup and I don't need to stand waist-high in water for this look :-}