[Neal Osborn]

Thanks guys.

[Neal Osborn]

Awesome Brett.  Good to see pictures of the rod – that is the one you won in the IA phtocontest?  Your daughter looks to be having a blast.

It’s been a while!

[Neal Osborn]

Phil –

I thought of you and this thread last night while watching a documentary on Annie Leibovitz.  There is scene about the process of choosing a magazine cover and it shows Rolling Stone magazine just after it’s move to New York in the early 70’s and there are the executives, editors, and photographers all sitting around discussing (arguing?) the topic of not only what pictures but more importantly what themes should be included.  Having recently read this thread I got a real kick out of watching it unfold (no pun intended).

[Neal Osborn]

Drifter, I’m dying to know . . . what’s under the glass on your table?

[Neal Osborn]

Gregg,

Go to this link http://www.itinerantangler.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?num=1182382322

Read my posts on how to link Photobucket.

[Neal Osborn]

Ken Rockwell posted this link on panoramics from a helicopter.

[Neal Osborn]

FYI, apparently there are THREE volumes to this set.

[Neal Osborn]

I first saw the two volume set at a conclave a few years ago and they are amazing works.  The author(s) provide some of the most detailed coverage of rare tying materials I have read to date.  Furthermore, the pictures are fantastic.  It is the kind of book you could sit and read for hours or just look at the pictures and dream.  This kind of writing is right up my alley – long, technical and heavy on the details. Very methodical – the kind of stuff you don’t see much nowadays. Since then I have watched ebay and other sources but amazingly they always sell at very high prices.  Although the publication is fairly recent they are not running additional prints.  It will be interesting to see what the complete two volume matched set with author signature will go for on ebay.  

[Neal Osborn]

Will –

Amazing as always.  You are the master.

Is that a local beetle you found or a commissioned piece?

[Neal Osborn]

Why not . . . let’s keep going.  This is fun.  I am way out of my league at this point but these are the kinds of things I wish someone would have told me when I started.  Surely I am going to get things wrong so feel free to jump in with quips or quotes for commodius contemplation.

Backgrounds and depth of field in relation to macro photography.  You can change the background three ways, 1) move it closer or further away, 2)bring it into or out of focus by changing depth of field (wider aperture = background blurred, smaller aperture = background more in focus), and 3)change the physical background with flash, either on- or off-camera (focus flash on the subject = background goes black, focus flash on the background and it becomes visible).

Examples vis-a-vis fly tying.

Shot of a calcasiu pig boat with the tying bench in the background.  Nothing special, nice quick shot after tying.

Or you could simply add a red backdrop and get a bit more effect. Still nothing special because there is no creative use of flash and the background is only inches away from the subject.

Same quick-shot style but using a piece of wood in the background.  Still no flash employed.  These are all basic techniques you can use on the tying bench or at the river as long as you are using ambient light.  Easy techniques to get you one step up on your up close shots.

However, you will soon get in to trouble when you pop up the flash.  Now you are dealing with shadows, halos, bounce back, bleed-in, and all the problems associated with flash (that is assuming the use of on camera flash and only a basic understanding of light theory).

This is a typical beginner shot and can be very frustrating if you don’t why things went wrong.  It is common to think that a black background should look black and a green background green.  However, that is not necessarily true.  In this shot I used a pure black background but (and this is key) it was placed only inches from the fly subject and I used flash.  When the flash pops it sends a direct beam straight to the background on it’s way to lighting the subject.  Thus the background acts as a reflector and shoots the light back at the camera sensor and the final exposure is a grey background with harsh shadows.  

Even if you change the background to green or any brighter color you still have problems with bounce back.  Here I used a green background but still placed it only inches from the subject.  Notice what happened, the white rubber actually has a halo at the edges and the fly itself has a green hue because the background reflected back at short distance.

Look at the fly in this picture and notice the black background close behind.  

Now we step to the next level.  Take the flash off the camera (if you have that capability) and direct it parallel to the fly vise.  The flash will shoot parallel to the background while illuminating the subject and thus avoid direct lighting the background.  Better looking picture and the background appears to be black.  However, there is still some bleeding of light on the right side and you get the feel of a black-grey gradient because you still had the background only inches from the subject.

And now to Morsie’s point about moving the background away from the subject.  Here I sat the vise on the floor about 3 feet from my “brown” desk.  I then took two flashes and aimed them parallel to the vise at the head and tail end of the fly. F/22 at 1/320.  There it is – the background is gone and appears uniformly black.  No brown in sight.  Note: even if the desk was hot pink this picture would still appear to have a black background.  Unfortunately, there are many things technically wrong with this picture but you get the point about the background.

Depth of field.

For flies or bugs you need small apertures (large f stops, or is f number I can never remember) like f18-f32 in order to get everything in focus.  Remember, small hole means less light so flash is often necessary.

Shot of a fly at f4.5 using the P (auto) mode.

Terrible.  Only a small sliver is in focus and worse yet the entire fly is blurry because it is not in the field.  With small working distances required with macro your depth of field is literally only inches as shown here.  You need to “stop down” the aperture in order to open up your depth of field.  

Here’s the point – you can’t simply use the P or auto modes on your camera to take pictures of flies or bugs.  It won’t work!!!  The camera will meter and choose f stops like f4-8 and your shots will not be in full focus because of the shallow depth of field.  Furthermore, you can’t always rely on A (aperture) mode either because if you choose f22 then your camera will stab you in back and choose a long shutter speed (sometimes long enough to go make a cup of tea before it finishes the exposure).  You can get around this by using a tripod but the shutter speed will still be very long.  

I will stop at this point because honestly that is about where I am in my own learning curve. I am now shooting only in manual mode in combination with flash and creative lighting; struggling through every minute but trying to make it look easy, hahaha.  I am constantly inspired by the professional images posted here. There is some serious talent on this site to keep you going.

[Neal Osborn]

Looks like “fish on” in picture three.

[Neal Osborn]

Congratulations Eric.

[Neal Osborn]

Daryl, congratulations on making the leap, now you are in the game.  Instead of commenting on your pictures directly, I think it would be more beneficial to give you a list I made for self critique.  That way you can better understand what specific advice you are after.  

Preface: a long time ago a very wise professor gave me a list called the “Ten P’s” for assessing a patient in less than 60 seconds.  I was just starting out on the clinics and was very inefficient at rounding on multiple patients each morning.  What I needed was to quickly assess the status of a patient (i.e. sick or not sick) without getting caught up in all the technical aspects of his/her care.  If you don’t know the basics you can’t make the appropriate adjustments.  Then I learned the Ten P’s and now had a road map for quickly focusing in on my goals.  

The 10 P’s:  piss, poop, puke, pain, pharmacy, pillow, people, ping machine, psychiatric, predisposition.  

“Good morning Mr. X how did you sleep last night?  Any problems going to the bathroom?  How is your pain? Did you get out of bed and walk around?  Family been by to see you?  Did the nurse adjust your medications (ping machine)?  Do you think you’ll be ready to go home today?”  To the nurse, “How is Mr. X?  Any problems with his care? Pain controlled? Social work see him?  Discharge plans going well?  Any concerns?”  And bam, within a few minutes you have a pretty good idea about the status of the patient and can make a focused decision about care for that day.  

---

A while back I made a similar list for photography because  I found myself needing a quick assessment checklist for my pictures.  When starting out you don’t always know what questions to ask yourself in order to make adjustments.  Furthermore, we often see wonderful pictures posted on the internet and want to create similar images ourselves but don’t know how to go about breaking down a shot into parts for examination.  Like fly fishing, there is a lot going on – By knowing the basics you can better look at a scene and have at least a starting point on what fly to choose and what leader to use, the rest of time we are adjusting on the water as the day progresses.

At first, it is common to shoot a bunch of pictures, load them on the computer and then stare aimlessly wondering if you like the result.  However, if you have a checklist memorized, you can quickly hone in on what is wrong with a picture and either make adjustments or ask higher level questions of others to help you out.  Instead of asking, “do you like this picture, what would you do differently?”, you can now say, “I am having trouble with the white balance in this picture and the composition seems wrong, I think I should have used f/10 instead of f/7, maybe a shorter focal length lens, what do you think?”  By thinking in this way, you can produce better quality images in less time and become more efficient at post production (i.e. waste less of your valuable time).

Here is my checklist.  Neal’s 10 C’s.  I initially printed this out and carried a copy in my wallet.  Now I just know it by heart and I “run the list” on every shot.  This is my blueprint for making on camera adjustments during a shoot.  

The 10 C’s
Commitment
Composition
Color
Conversation
Coverage
Contemplation (consideration)
Convergence
Categorization
Construction
Clean

Commitment – Purpose of the shot – why am I taking this picture (assignment, personal, enjoyment, educational, or just posting on a certain internet blog site).  This translates to my picture quality setting – am I going to use RAW vs jpeg, small, medium, or large size?  Do I need to make it count or can I just snap the shot.

Composition – Where do you want to place the subject, rule of thirds vs breaking the rules, closeup vs in the distance, on the ground looking up vs in a tree looking down, etc.  Are you trying to a cover shot for a certain fly fishing magazine ;), does the editor need space for typing?  Then take a few shots and look at your display, do you like the composition, what could you adjust?  Take another shot and so forth.

Color – Lighting (high noon, sidelight, backlight, all light).  Are your shadows deep and harsh?  Do you need fill flash?  Look at the histogram, are there blown pixels?  Is the white balance correct?  Too purple, too orange?  Also, beware of shadows!!! This is the point were I slow down and look at my shadows.  Did I get the main subject but neglect to see that big monster shadow on the wall?  How can I overcome that with flash or diffusers or snoots or other techniques to employ or learn for the next shot.

*in just the first three C’s you can adjust the settings to achieve about 60-70% of your intended goal.

Conversation – (story).  What are you trying to convey by taking the picture?  Did you achieve this goal? What can you change while still standing there?  Example, did you intend to take a shot of someone landing a fish full of excitement but instead you used a wide angle zoom and the subject is only a small part of the picture and their face not in view?  Or did you really want to get a macro shot of that Caddis pupae but instead captured the rocks, leaves and twigs as distraction from the story?

Coverage – Depth of field (background foreground) – How does the picture look, what is in focus what is out of focus.  Did you want to have a dry fly in focus but the background artistically blurry but instead got a flat picture with everything in focus?  How could you change your f stop to achieve this goal?  Would another lens work better?  Also, here is where I ask myself about the background, is it too dark and boring or do I need to add some flash to bring out colors for effect?  (side note:  ever notice those really great fly tying shots in magazines where the background appears to be all black or even slightly gradient? Ask yourself how they did that and how you can do it).  Pause here and ask yourself about the background, does it work or does it need adjustment.

Contemplation (consideration) – Attention – where is the action.  Take time to review and think about your shot.  Did you replicate your mind’s eye?

Convergence – Focus.  Is your picture sharp or soft?  Zoom in on the picture with your camera’s display, look at the edges, are they in focus?  Do you need a tripod? Do you need to secure the camera on a branch or wall or rock?  Did yo get the shakes?

Categorization – What kind of picture did you take?  Did you want a horizontal instead of landscape?  Was it shot in the day but better suited for a night shot?  Also, do you tend to overshoot certain categories (i.e. do you have like a hundred landscape shots of a river but only one close-up of the leaves?).  Do you want to broaden your categories, maybe shoot some hands, feet, running water, more detail and less overview?  This is an important category for me because I find that months later it is the unusual category shots of a trip that really catch my attention and if I forget to think about that while shooting I will undoubtedly pile up on the “usual” shots.

Construction – Framing and building.  What is the foundation of the picture?  Did you build a solid base or was it put together in a hurry and on the verge of collapse.  In other words, does it have that “perfect” feel like you knew what you were doing or does it look like you pulled out the camera and prayed that you might get something good.

Clean – Simplify.  Final step for me.  I always finish by asking did I manage to make this shot a simple as possible. Did I remove unneeded background distraction?  Did a dog walk in the background?  Do I really need that tree limb in the shot?  How could I make it even more simple?  

[Neal Osborn]

Here are a few macro shots I took this morning while walking Chloe (the dog).  Seriously, you can practice macro just about anywhere, including your own back yard.  BTW, these are all taken with the camera handheld on a cloudy day with active rain/drizzle; just think what you can do under optimal or controlled conditions with a tripod and some extra gear. Warning – this stuff is addictive.

The more you practice around the house (preferably outside) and study your results the better equipped you will be once you get to the river.

[Neal Osborn]

Abe –

That’s what it’s all about!  The wet-fly swing is lethal and I see you truly had that “Dah” moment when it all fits together.  I spent a weekend last year with a older Northeastern fisherman who taught me how to fish the wet flies.  Since that time I have many days like you describe where the the hook sets are just pounding, what a blast.  I have been tying wet flies and tailoring my “delayed harvest” stocker trout fishing to the wet fly game with great results.  

[Neal Osborn]

Some additional internet links on macro photography.  

Here is a .pdf copy of a powerpoint presentation on macro photography.  It is a great place to start your reading and the pictures are good quality.  It is by the Central Maryland Photographers Guild, January 2008. http://www.cmpg.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/macro-photography-presentation.pdf

http://www.stayfocusedphotoclub.com/macro_photography.pdf

http://www.minnesotanature.org/Media/Macro.pdf

For the series techies in the group this .pdf is what you are looking for http://www.canonfd.com/macrobrochures/closeupengl82.pdf

The mother load of .pdfs on macro photography http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/macro-photography-pdf.html

A powerpoint (.pdf) presentation http://www.bwps.org/res/tips/macro/MacroNightFeb06.pdf

This is my next book purchase (I have heard good things about the author and the text) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470118768?ie=UTF8&tag=marvelsphoto-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0470118768

[Neal Osborn]

Simmer down now people.  You all know my posts tend to run on the long side. Force of habit.

Ben, LMAO, over half the notes I posted are directly a result of our conversations.  You are the true mentor.  Every time we speak I have to take notes and then go to internet to learn in more detail.  The above notes are simple summaries of the knowledge I’ve learned from people like you and Zach.  And you’re right – you are good at spending my money, ha.  BTW, today one of my patients was a professional photographer; when he saw my R1C1 on-lens setup he practically volunteered to pose (only problem is that I was seeing him for acid reflux, hahahaha).  

[Neal Osborn]

Here are a few internet links on macro photography I’ve collected

http://photo.net/learn/macro/

http://www.bmpt1.com/

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/macro-photography-tips-for-compact-digital-camera-users/

http://www.photomacrography.net/

http://homepages.tig.com.au/~parsog/photo/macro.html

http://www.cameralineup.com/blog_8.shtml

http://www.shutterbug.com/refreshercourse/lens_tips/172/

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4881/photolesson1.html

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_focal_length.html

http://www.naturemacrophotography.com/indexNGM.html

http://www.alrfoto.com/galleries.htm

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/21/25-beautiful-macro-photography-shots-photos/

[Neal Osborn]

Here are a few notes I’ve picked up on macro photography.  Others – feel free to add on here.

Preface: These are copied thoughts from my notebook.  I have focused on macro photography for the past year in order to develop a niche in medical photography.  Below are “topics” that I believe are important to the process and I wanted to share with you how to approach the subject.  It is important to understand each topic and spend time at least reading the basics.  Early on I did not have a structured road-map to help focus my reading and therefore my reading was disjointed.  Think about each topic and ask yourself, “how does this relate to my goals, my camera, my budget, etc.”

First, have a goal in mind of what you are trying to shoot (e.g. bugs on the water is a good start).  Then you can hone in the necessary equipment and techniques needed for that subject.  Once you master one you can apply the knowledge to another subject and so on.  For nature macro photography you won’t need to break the bank to get started but for other techniques like medical macro or educational photography (e.g. Will Milne’s fantastic bug shots) you will certainly need more advanced equipment.  Like my example above, I “had” to start with a very specific subject matter but now I have grown to love macro photography and find myself developing my own style and aesthetic feel.  

Book to read: IMHO the best book on nature macro photography is John Shaw’s Closeups in Nature (Practical Photography Books) (Paperback) http://www.amazon.com/Shaws-Closeups-Nature-Practical-Photography/dp/0817440526/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226534850&sr=8-1.  This is an older book, copyright 1987, and the author employs film photography.  However, it is a superb read and very detailed.  I have read it at least 3 times and the pages are full of notes and earmarks.  It is a perfect start for nature macro photography.

Macro state of mind:  
*Decide what to place within the frame and what to leave out.
*Macro is saying, “look at this and only this.”  You are telling others this one little scene is special for a reason.
*Think like a chef – macro is like making a perfect crème brûlée – very simple ingredients but requiring mastery of all aspects of the baking process.  Your not grilling a steak on the grill in a hurry, you are attempting to create perfection through skill while at the same time making it look simple and easy.  Don’t let em see you sweat.
*You need to be a clinician – set up the camera, choose exposure, understand lighting, harness available light, and manipulate the micro environment, while at the same time remembering to compose the shot in order to convey the simple poetic beauty of the original scene.

Enough rambling.  Here are the topics you want to write down and study. Each topic is important and filled with it’s own technical learning curve.  However, you can find good reviews on each topic via the internet or in books.

Magnification Rates: you need at least a basic understanding of what is meant by 1:1 vs 1:4 vs 1:8 etc.

Exposure: learn to shoot in manual mode and know how aperture effects depth of field.  Remember, you will be using small aperture settings (large f stop number) most of the time.  Know when to change your aperture and how it effects your exposure and lighting.

Autofocus: at least know what this means and when to turn it off.

Light Metering (know your camera’s metering system and how to manipulate the settings): youtube has some good videos on this topic, it is very helpful to know how to meter and how this effects your image.

Camera system and the available lenses: Canon vs Nikon, etc.  Know what they have to offer in the line up.  

Lenses (what is a macro lens and what focal length do you need):  Learn what your kit zoom lens can and can’t do and when to upgrade to a macro. Then you will need to decide what focal length lens you really need (basically there are 3 macro focal lengths – 50-60mm vs 100-105mm vs 200mm) They are all completely different beasts but share a common ability to focus down to about 1:1.

Focal length and how it effects the background and main subject:  Different macro lenses create different effects on the background.

Tripod and heads:  You need a tripod and a good head for macro, just do a google search or ask around, kind of a broad topic.

[Neal Osborn]

Check out this online magazine!!!

http://aroundermagazine.com/

Some amazing panoramic shots.

[Author]

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