TimT
Member
- Joined
- 24 Jul 2013
- Messages
- 117
Like most you whom have dabbled with macro photography knows, adequate and good lighting is essential to get low shutter times (=sharp pictures of moving targets) and a decent depth of field. Most of you most likely also knows is that good lighting is *very* expensive
I have made an IKEA hack that I want to share with you that I find works pretty decent. Its based around two things where one of them has a dual purpose outside macro photography.
A handheld stabilizer for cameras (~9£ incl. shipment - good for shooting videos too):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310712855028
And a series of flexible LED light from IKEA (£10 each):
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00169635/
The stabilizer is actually pretty fun just on its own. It makes it much more easy to shoot videos of you tank. It helps when doing 'fly-by's' or situations where you want to pan/rotate/zoom concurrently as the stabilizer, well, stabilizes, while you can concentrate on the other actions.
On top of that you need some thin white diffusing material. I used some white plastic garbage bags but you can use whatever to diffuse the light. The idea is that you mount the LED lights on the arm of the stabilizer and then you adjust the LEDs to hit the focus area of the camera without creating any reflections on the aquarium glass. The white plastic helps create soft natural light without sharp shadows. And by hitting the target from different angles there is virtually no sharp shadows to begin with.
When fastening the LEDs to the stabilizer it makes sense to mount the camera in a wrong 90 degree angle so the stabilizer bar becomes a lightning rack instead. Here is some pictures of the setup:
20140822_221305 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
20140822_221335 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
I have shot the following pictures with that setup and my Olympus OM-D E-M5 with an Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens.
Besides basic cropping for composition all the pictures here below are shot with that setup, 100% handheld, and are totally untouched JPG's straight from the camera. No post processing and adjusting afterwards at all besides cropping:
Hatchet3 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Hatchet1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Hatchet2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Amano2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Amano1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Green2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Green1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Otto2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Otto1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Enjoy!
I have made an IKEA hack that I want to share with you that I find works pretty decent. Its based around two things where one of them has a dual purpose outside macro photography.
A handheld stabilizer for cameras (~9£ incl. shipment - good for shooting videos too):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310712855028
And a series of flexible LED light from IKEA (£10 each):
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00169635/
The stabilizer is actually pretty fun just on its own. It makes it much more easy to shoot videos of you tank. It helps when doing 'fly-by's' or situations where you want to pan/rotate/zoom concurrently as the stabilizer, well, stabilizes, while you can concentrate on the other actions.
On top of that you need some thin white diffusing material. I used some white plastic garbage bags but you can use whatever to diffuse the light. The idea is that you mount the LED lights on the arm of the stabilizer and then you adjust the LEDs to hit the focus area of the camera without creating any reflections on the aquarium glass. The white plastic helps create soft natural light without sharp shadows. And by hitting the target from different angles there is virtually no sharp shadows to begin with.
When fastening the LEDs to the stabilizer it makes sense to mount the camera in a wrong 90 degree angle so the stabilizer bar becomes a lightning rack instead. Here is some pictures of the setup:
20140822_221305 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
20140822_221335 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
I have shot the following pictures with that setup and my Olympus OM-D E-M5 with an Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens.
Besides basic cropping for composition all the pictures here below are shot with that setup, 100% handheld, and are totally untouched JPG's straight from the camera. No post processing and adjusting afterwards at all besides cropping:
Hatchet3 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Hatchet1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Hatchet2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Amano2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Amano1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Green2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Green1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Otto2 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Otto1 by sendposttiltimpics, on Flickr
Enjoy!
Last edited: