Macro photography and trying to get the light right

I have said many times, that getting the light right with macro photography is one of the critical elements to getting a decent picture, and that applies whether using natural light or artificial light.

Of course getting the light right is at the heart of all genres of photography, getting it wrong in super close up work renders most shots as unusable and fit only for the application of the delete button … and there have been times when my delete button has become almost worn out through use!

Work in progress

I have continued to practice my macro photography and yesterday tried another alternative lighting approach (basically another softbox I had made). In some respects it worked quite well and although the light is getting reasonably well distributed it could still benefit from being softer.

Most of the pictures below are with the flash setting on my Speedlight 430EXII set at either one quarter or one half power, but as you will see from some of the pictures I’m still getting glare off some of the insects.

So I suppose it’s back to the drawing board to work on how I can make some improvements. Having said that although I know there is much room for improvement, overall I am pretty happy with progress to date. At some point I will do a post that takes a look at the softboxes I have been trying.

Have a look through the picture gallery and see what you think.