SequentialMacro's photostream  

Hi everyone.
Here's a 5mm Beetle of the species Abax parallelepipedus which i already photographed before, but the last guy was around 3cm in length ;
www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6189689579/in/set-7...
Since there isn't any Jumping Spiders in sight, i found this guy under a rock in the back garden and decided he would make an interesting subject to photograph, and it turned out he was an impossible little GUY to photograph too !
After a while i manage to get him to stay still exactly where i wanted him too, on the bright rainbow colours of a blue tac packet !
I think the main challenge with this beetle and any other for the matter is light. No matter how strong or weak you set the flash to or the diffuser you use, the shiny surface just reflects too much or too little, meaning a dark or over whelmingly bright image that needs over editing in Photoshop, so unfortunately thats what i had to do, decreasing the contrast and increasing the brightness seemed to do the job
( Just about )
Anyway, enough babbling, this was taken with the Bellows at full stretch with my usual setup which you can view here ;
www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6859006619/in/photo...
Here's a facts page on Common Beetles you can find in the UK ;
www.bugsandweeds.co.uk/beetles.html
For anyone interested here's my Facebook Macro photogrpahy Fan page ;
www.facebook.com/pages/Macro-Photography/126069520823109
Here's a larger image of the above ;
www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6920965687/sizes/l/...

Cheers, as always have a nice day !

Hi all,

I'd like to firstly say, i know this isn't a macro. but i just want a bit of a change :-)

Went on a treak and a half today on my bike, something i was initially happy to do until i ended up on the hard shoulder of the m5200 or something completely lost due to me looking for something to photograph !

Saw a buzzard in what looked like a forbidden area of industrial land i wans't meant to be on, but it saw me, took off and after 20 minutes of chasing it through this massive field, people looking at me thinking i was off my head, i gave up shamefully. Though would have been great if had gotten a photo of it, was truly massive in terms of the birds of the UK.

This photo i took on my way back, half lost, half trying to stay on the bike in gale force winds. I got off the bike and decided i wasn't to go back empty handed, and this is what i got, touched it up a tad in photoshop as it was a boring image in all honesty.

This one was just taken with my 18-55mm Lens on the canon 550D body.

Hope you like it be sure to leave a comment and add me as a contact to keep in touch with my photos.

Here's a larger image ; www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6887185561/sizes/l/...

This is the same shield bug, still asleep on my desk after 4 days of me finding him, he could have walked off or flew away but i think he enjoys that warm lamp too much !

Will keep taking pictures of him as he is the only insect in sight worth photographing and he is pretty amazing, by far the most colourful specimen I've ever photographed anyway !

Click here for a larger image ; www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6875597437/sizes/l/...

As always, have a nice day !

(Stacked from 20 images, but by the looks of it i should have went for more, some bits out of focus here, but with practice i'm getting there)

Hey all,

This here is a Centipede ! This one was around 3mm in full body length ( as you can see nearly as thin as the leaf ) so as you can imagine it was seriously hard to photograph... Stacked from around 13 images altogether it proved hard to get something worth uploading when i eventually had to settle on this in all honesty, which i'm not too fond of.

This was one of the insects i also found motionless a few days back in the garden, cold conditions.

Taken with my setup which is on my profile so from now on i will post a link to all of my photos to the photo of my setup, which is easier ; www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6859006619/in/photo...

As always here's a page on centipedes you may find interesting ; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede

Here's my Facebook fan page for those interested ; www.facebook.com/pages/Macro-Photography/126069520823109

Click here for a larger image ; www.flickr.com/photos/sequentialmacro/6866464127/sizes/l/...

Second image i'm to upload tonight showing my setup for the last image i just posted below ( Look down )

Now, this setup is pretty cheap all except the body of course...

The body is the Canon 550D which i got for 600 pounds and payed off over 6 months... it came as a bundle with the 18-55mm Lens which has proved very very useful as a beginner photographer. When i recieved the camera i realised i would need a lot of space so i bought myself a 16gb HCSD card at 30MB/S which is just amazing for 20 pounds.

For a while, i played around with the DOF, but in all honesty i didn't know what to do with the camera, where to begin... so i began with the basics - the extension tubes... !!
This inspiration came from Thomas Shahan's setup and consists of ;

50mm F1.8 FD Prime lens - 15 Pounds.
I Also have the 28mm F2.8 FD Prime Lens not shown here.

Bellows - 20 Pounds Ebay price

Extension tubes - 9 Pounds from Amazon

The flash was slighty more pricey at 70 Pounds but it's the cheapest you can get these days and does the job, not using too much battery power which is a BIG upside... I also should mention i use rechaegable batteries, saves quite a bit of money.

The flash chord was 20 Pounds also, shouldn't have went to Jessops !!

I normally catch my insects and bring them indoors, giving them something to eat and calming them down enough for me to start snapping away... If not i will do it the hard way and chase them around a field - usually in the summer time when it's not minus 2 :-)
So i hope this clears things up with some of you wanting to know, if you need any more tips or information contact me here on Flickr or at my Facebook page here ;

www.facebook.com/pages/Macro-Photography/126069520823109

Thanks