[NatureNS] Checklist of Nova Scotia Sphingidae

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Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:49:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: bev wigney <bev@magickcanoe.com>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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From: Angus MacLean <angusmcl@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Sent: Sat, June 12, 2010 2:17:13 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Checklist of Nova Scotia Sphingidae

Hi Bev:
Your moth pics are extraordinary!! What is your procedure for getting
these shots?
Thanks, 
Angus
-----

Hi Angus (and all),

Thanks very much.  Regarding photographing moths, this is pretty much 
how I do it.   I could give you the "short explanation", but it won't really tell you want you probably need to know, so I'm giving you the long version. 

I set up an old "bug zapper" UV-type lamp on a lawn chair 
and wrap the whole chair with a white cotton sheet so that moths have 
many surfaces upon which to rest.  It also gives me many areas of the 
sheet where moths can be sitting without being silhouetted against the 
light.  Best time for mothing seems to be after about 10 p.m.  Back at 
my farm in Ontario, I used to turn a regular porch light on at around 10 and leave it on for 15 or 20 minutes, then go out and start shooting.  
In that case, I would be shooting against the background of stone 
material around the porch lamp.  I have variations on 
this which I've used when mothing in Arizona - a trouble lamp with a 
regular lightbulb in it, a clamp-on reflector lamp with a blacklight, 
etc..  I tend to experiment quite a bit.  Regardless of the lamp set-up, my method of photography is the same.     

For a camera, I have used several different ones over the years.  My 
favourites are the Nikon CP8800 and the Canon G11.  For fine detail in 
very small insects, I've always liked my Nikon CP4500 (bought around 
2003), but have found that the colour is not as true as the CP8800 and 
the G11, so I prefer working with them -- although I should say that 
since changing from the Canon G10 to a G11 last year, I use only that 
camera for moths these days.  Keep in mind that most cameras can be made to work for this kind of shooting, but it just takes some fiddling around trying different things.

I vary how I shoot with plenty of experimentation -- sometimes with the 
built-in flash turned on, and sometimes with it turned off.  In any 
case, I always shoot handheld (never with a tripod), holding the camera 
with my right hand.   I work using the articulating LCD screen to see 
what I'm shooting (one of a couple of reasons that I went from the G10 
to the G11 last year as it had a fixed LCD and I find them too hard to 
work with when shooting insects.   While shooting, I hold a small LED 
lamp with my left hand and move it around to try different amounts of 
light from different angles.  I've found that some kind of auxiliary 
light that stays on the whole time is necessary for macro photography as the camera must focus and needs light to do so.  I've experimented with various set-ups  such as  LED ring-lamps made for macro photography 
that attach to the camera,  etc.. but my favourite thing to use is a 
square LED lamp - very small and light.  It's a Sima with 36 LED bulbs.  It's made to be mounted on camcorders when you want constant light.  It will fit on the hot shoe slot on a camera, and it comes with a fairly 
nifty bracket that attaches to the tripod mount screw of a camera.  
However, I don't ever use it either of those ways as I like being able 
to shine the light from different angles depending on how the moth it 
resting.  The little LED lamp throws an amazing amount of light - I 
often light my way out to the moth lamp using it (btw, i keep the house 
lights turned off at night as I don't want moths coming to windows 
instead of to the lamp).  The LED lamp is rechargeable and the charge 
lasts pretty long even when the lamp is on for most of the time while 
I'm shooting.  It can't be used while charging, so I have to remember to charge it every couple of days when I'm shooting moths in the evenings.   That's pretty much it for equipment.  

I shoot using mostly auto settings, but with the camera in macro mode.  I usually try to shoot each moth with and without the built-in flash and 
under different light angles from the Sima LED lamp.   With the Canon, 
its built-in flash doesn't tend to throw much shadow from the lens as 
the lens is pretty short, so I don't have to angle the camera at all to 
get a mostly clear shot.  With the CP8800, it's trickier as the flash 
throws a large shadow across the lower part of the image due to the 
large lens on that camera.  When shooting with that camera, I have to 
try to get the moth into the upper part of the image so that it's well 
lit.  That's one of the reasons I'm working mainly with the Canon G11 
these days -- also it's just a very good camera for low light conditions - extremely sensitive - colour is very true - and it can shoot nice 
high rez images.  I used a G10 last year, but switched the to G11 and 
find it is better for working in low light - much less likelihood of a 
blurred image - plus it has the articulating LCD screen as mentioned 
above.    By the way, I'm often asked how I can shoot insects hand held - I've 
been asked this a lot and was actually followed around for awhile by a 
couple of well-known pro-shooters from the states when I was at an 
insect field outing a few years ago.  They were mystified by how I get 
the images that I do using such small cameras and no tripod or special 
lenses.  All I can 
say is that it's all in the technique.  (-:

I do some work on the images to prepare them to go up into my galleries. I think that's pretty much a given when you do macro photography as you generally have to do at least some cropping if nothing else.  I use 
Adobe PS Elements 8 running on one of the new iMacs.   The usual process is to start by cropping the image to get rid of a good bit of the 
background.  Then I resize the images as they are usually far too large 
even after cropping.  I usually bump up the sharpness a little, but it 
barely needs that with the G11.  If necessary, I do some colour 
correction using the "Remove Color Cast" tool - just click on an area 
that should be white, and click "OK" and it will usually correct the 
whole image quite well (one of the advantages of shooting the moths on a white sheet).  Depending on the shot, some images will tend to be too 
brown looking.  The color-cast tool will get rid of that.  Often, I use 
the Shadows/Highlights tool in Adjust Lighting to take out heavier 
shadows and tone down any blown highlight areas - again, with the G11, 
it rarely blows out light areas, but does tend to get a little heavy on 
shadows.  However, the colour is still there when you bump up the light 
levels on the shadows.  Once in awhile, I may use the Hue/Saturation 
tool, but really don't find that necessary with the G11.  I found I used it a lot more with the older CP4500 as it just didn't have the same 
capability as these newer cameras.  Aft