An odonate exuvia was photographed against a pure white background using the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique. Yep, this time the background is actually pure white (255, 255, 255). Now that’s the look for which I was striving!
36.1mm (200mm, 35mm equivalent) | ISO 100 | f/7.1 | 1/800 s | 0 ev
This specimen is an unknown species from the Family Aeshnidae (Darners), probably Common Green Darner (Anax junius). Compare/contrast the “MYN look” with a more traditional photo set of another A. junius exuvia.
Related Resources
- Meet Your Tiniest Neighbors Using Macro Gear and a Field Studio Setup – an interview with Clay Bolt, co-founder of the “Meet Your Neighbours” project
- Meet Your Neighbours – The Field Studio e-Book, by Niall Benvie, co-founder of the “Meet Your Neighbours” project
- Meet Your Neighbours – Aeshnidae exuvia (my third attempt at using the MYN technique)
Tech Tips
I added a Raynox DCR-250 close-up filter to my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ300 24x superzoom bridge camera for a closer view of the face/head of the odonate exuvia.
A Godox X2To/p wireless flash trigger for Olympus and Panasonic was used to fire an off-camera Godox TT685C Thinklite Flash for Canon Cameras (manual mode) fitted with a Vello plastic bounce dome diffuser. This flash unit was used to light the underside of the translucent white plastic background; the top of the flash unit was ~20 cm from the bottom of the white plastic. No other flash units were used to shoot the photo.
Although I own better camera gear for shooting macro photos, I like to use my smaller, lighter DMC-FZ300 for proof-of-concept experimentation with new techniques. Look for a transition to one of my Fujifilm- or Canon macro rigs in the near future.
Copyright © 2019 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
Tags: BoG Photo Studio, exuvia, Family Aeshnidae (Darners), gear talk, Meet Your Neighbours, studio photography
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