Insect macro shots from Garston Wood
These macro shots are from a recent trip to Garston Wood using the Olympus OM-D EM-5 DSLR, the Zuiko Olympus 80mm F4 macro lens at F11, and the Olympus T28 twin macro flash. Wide angle filters and plastic cups with vellum paper inside were placed in front of the 2 flash heads to diffuse the light and so minimise flash hot spots.
The first two are of a Nut Weevil (Curculio nucum) on a Bluebell with different coloured card placed in the background.
Yellow Card
Great results from the flash setup and experimentation. Love the Nut Weevil, and Sawfly.
I also really like that fly and its pose, wonder also if it looks as good rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise ?
Thanks Chris.
I tried the rotation, and the result was not pleasing to my eye creating too much space in the top 2/3rs of the portrait
Pete – I have a chance to buy a T28 for a reasonable price. Was hoping to pair the unit with my E-M1. Any gotchas you can think of?
Thanks
Hi William,
The T28 works with my E-M5 and so therefore I would suspect that this will also work with the E-M1. You will need the T Power control 1 unit to attach to the hotshoe of the camera. You will then have to manually play with the flash settings, you might find these two blogs of interest which outline the steps I followed in testing the T28 with the E-M5 http://www.petes-photoworld.co.uk/2014/04/13/the-olympus-om-d-em-5-dslr-earlier-om-olympus-flash-system-trial/ and http://www.petes-photoworld.co.uk/2014/04/18/olympus-om-d-em-5-om-flash-system-experimentation-continued/
Hope this of some use.
Pete
Pete – Thanks for the response. I can’t find the trigger voltage for the T28 or the trigger voltage tolerance for the E-M1 listed anywhere. Sent a note to Olympus but have yet to receive a response. Bought the unit off eBay along with the Power Control 1 unit and the flash lens mount. Worse comes to worst and voltages are iffy I can always run it off a Safe-Sync. While I wait for the shipment I need to design some diffusers. In one of your articles you note the using T32 ND filter set to help control hot spots. What is your impression of the filters, worth persuing?
Hi William, the OM Olympus filter set (wide angle, ND4 & ND8) are not a bad option, however a better pursuit may be the creation of your own light diffuser set up. I have found using a cup with vellum paper inside works reasonably well. The need for light diffusion will to a certain extent depend on your subject matter and the magnification/distance you intend to shoot at. I typically seek to diffuse the light on very small subjects at high magnification. I do not use normally use flash when taking larger size subjects, such as butterflies, finding natural light (weather dependent) to be sufficient.
If you want to learn more about different light diffusion set ups then I would recommend taking a look at my brothers website. Here is a link to his techniques page.
http://www.macro-photo.co.uk/category/technique/
Regards
Pete