Surprise

One of the characteristics of single lens reflex cameras is the mirror moves when you shoot, blocking out the viewfinder while the shutter is open recording your image. Just a fact of life. Another fact of life is that while the mirror is up, things are happening that you can't see. Usually bad things, people move, change expressions, the ball goes out of the frame. That kind of stuff.

Sometimes it is something good, thought. Last week I was shooting koi, those huge goldfish. The owner had fed them and they were coming to the surface to eat. I was banging away with my 70-200, shooting tight. What I was seeing looked good. Had one fish really big in the frame, with its face and mouth out of the water, others behind and underneath, enough out of focus to be a nice color element.(Sometimes I sound like I know what I am doing)

I came back to the office and started editing my images. I found quite a few with these huge bubbles. Do koi burp?

Several years ago I was out at Houston Lake photographing the alligators. Got a quick shot of one as he surfaced, then went back down. When I edited I found the shot with the turtle in his mouth.

Sometimes you get these neat surprises.

Macro Work

Want to give your macro work a little zap? Make those flowers or bugs just really pop? Try using two lights. The back or side light gives depth to your subject and separates subject and background. And flash just makes the colors more vibrant. Getting the main light off the camera helps as well. I use an off-camera cord so I can move my main light where I want it. The cord gives about a 3 foot reach, so it is pretty mobile. Anytime I shoot flash, I use that cord.

The spider was shot at night using a macro lens and two Nikon SB28 flashes, one with the off-camera cord, the other one set up as a back/side light on a lightstand.

It was fired with an optical slave trigger. The second flash and optical slave are great investments. You can buy a Vivitar flash and a optical trigger really cheap. You will probably have to shoot manually.

This works great with anything you want to shoot with your macro lens, but also will work for still lifes and portraits.