I thought I’d post something a little different (for me anyway). Last March my wife and I attended a salamander workshop at the local Audubon center. The Audubon leader took us to a vernal pool, found a mass of salamander eggs, and placed them in a white plastic container by the pool. That is where I photographed these salamander embryo images. The egg mass was returned unharmed to the pool.
Not the most artistic image for sure but I find it pretty interesting. I’m wondering if others might have advice on improving the capture here as I have no experience photographing wet macro subjects. We are scheduled to attend another workshop at the Audubon center later this month.
Canon 7D, Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro, 1.4x TC
ISO 400, f6.3, 1/250s, hand held
I took out some bright sky reflections.
Any comments appreciated.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
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Very cool, Allen. I particularly like the two main subjects. Two things I’d suggest trying are using a circular polarizer and, if they’ll let you, taking a dark umbrella to shade the dish and try to eliminate sky reflections. I think @Jim_Zablotny might have some good ideas.
Hi,
One way to get around the reflections is to use a polarizer as Dennis suggested. Coral photographers use a viewing box which consists of a section of large diameter pvc pipe with a piece of glass siliconed to the pipe which floats in the tank for photographing from above. Sanjay Joshi has an online article in Advanced Aquarist titled Top Down Photographing Techniques and Equipment for Corals in a Reef Aquarium. He has some impressive designs for these gadgets and his top down photographs are some of the best I’ve seen. These floating observation devices eliminate ripples and work best with the camera lens being shielded from ambient light sources. Shorter macros also tend to work better as you need to get the objective part of the lens as close to the glass as possible. A rubber lens hood can also be used to shield the lens from any glare from extraneous light sources. It is fun to MacGuyver a gadget that controls the pohysics of reflected light!..Jim
Thanks for the advice guys. Very helpful!
@Allen_Sparks re Jim’s mention of rubber lens hoods. I happened to be looking at them just a couple of days ago. They’re like the silicone pop up dishes you can buy these days except they’re black. They were in the $10 range on Amazon, but check the shipping time. One I looked at was absurd unless you paid them extra.
fascinating abstract. I might like to see a different crop with the left 2/3 of this frame.
