A small toy dinosaur-lizard (~2.25 in, or ~5.72 cm long) was photographed at BoG Photo Studio.
I named the toy “Lizzie.” Clever, huh? She’s a “rescue toy” who is quite happy in her new home. (I found her on the sidewalk outside the apartment building where I live.) Lizzie enjoys working part-time as a model at BoG Photo Studio.
Tech Tips
The macro photographs in this post were taken using my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 24x superzoom digital camera, Raynox DCR-250 close-up filter, Godox X2To/p wireless flash trigger for Olympus and Panasonic (New!), Godox TT685o/p Thinklite Flash for Olympus/Panasonic Cameras (manual mode), and Godox TT685F Thinklite Flash for Fujifilm Cameras. Both external flash units were fitted with Lastolite Ezybox Speed-Lite 2 flash modifiers. The Raynox close-up filter screws onto the front of the camera lens using a 52-43mm step-down ring.
1-Area Focusing and Spot Metering were used for all photos. f/4.0 to f/4.5 is the sweet spot for this zoom lens.
With Raynox DCR-250 close-up filter
300mm is 12x zoom. Some zoom is necessary when the Raynox close-up filter is attached to the camera lens since some vignetting is caused by mounting a 43mm filter on a 52mm lens.
~54mm (300mm, 35mm equivalent) | ISO 100 | f/4.5 | 1/100 s | 0 ev
Without Raynox DCR-250 close-up filter
300mm is 12x zoom. Notice the magnification isn’t close to what it is using the same camera settings with the close-up filter. Plus it’s worth noting the following image was cropped slightly for better composition. One external flash was used.
~54mm (300mm, 35mm equivalent) | ISO 100 | f/4.5 | 1/80 s | 0.33 ev
600mm is 24x zoom, maximum telephoto magnification. One external flash was used.
108mm (600mm, 35mm equivalent) | ISO 100 | f/4.5 | 1/100 s | 0.33 ev
108mm (600mm, 35mm equivalent) | ISO 100 | f/4.5 | 1/100 s | 0.33 ev
Related Resource: Panasonic Bridge Cameras – Basic Photography Part 4, Close Up & Macro, by Graham Houghton (23:35).
Copyright © 2019 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
October 9, 2019 at 6:24 am |
Nice. It seems like you are constantly tweaking and improving your set-up. Bring on the dragonfly exuviae.
October 9, 2019 at 7:05 pm |
Although I could use this rig to shoot studio photos of odonate exuviae, it’s more likely I would use one of my other cameras that are better suited for high resolution macro photography. The purpose of this blog post is simply to show a sample photo taken using a small, lightweight camera kit that I’m more likely to carry in the field than any of my “studio” macro camera kits. As you can see, the FZ300/Raynox DCR-250 rig is capable of taking fairly high-quality macro photos. More later in follow-up blog posts.