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3. Macro Insect Photography

Hello All,

I was wondering if there was anyone out there who was into macro photography or has experience with it, specifically photographing insects. I have recently gotten into a DSLR and I'm looking to get a macro lens. I'm wonder if the use of a macro lens is how pictures like this were achieved.

I also have a Amscope Stereo dissection microscope 2x-90x with a third ocular for a camera hook up. Anyone use one of these to photograph insects? What does your set up consist of?

and last but not least I'd like to share some of my recent insect pics from my favorite local creek. All of these pictures have been taken with a Canon PowerShot in macro mode... I have yet to break in my DSLR on any insects yet.

Some nice shots there. As you can tell from this site, I am into macro photography. ;)

Most of my bug pictures are taken with a Canon 20D DSLR and two Canon macro lenses, the 100mm f/2.8 and the 65mm 1-5X, with the MT-24EX macro flash. It's a pretty expensive setup but it sure gets the job done.

I haven't done much photography through a microscope, but decent pictures can certainly be taken that way.

DOS - there is alot of info out there about photography via a microscope photo tube. And you should be able to easily attach your digital body to the scope with an adapter. If your camera has the ability to attach to a pc you can use the screen capture ability of many photo software programs to capture straight to the pc and use the pc monitor to see/adjust the image rather than the small camera screen.

The two major differences between a scope and a macro lens are depth and area of field. You will lose alot of both via the scope. If you can get the great photos (like many you will see on this site) of what you want via a macro lens I would use it as generally you will have a better depth of field. While I have invested my $$ in the scope approach it is really amazing what folks are doing nowadays with "hand held" digital cameras.

There are programs generally called montage programs which can create depth of field from several combined microscope photos so when you decide you really want up close photos via the scope they can be really great photos. And the technology is improving every day so you will have to check the market when you decide to take that step. As the experience increases the prices are dropping dramatically and there is very good shareware out there now.

One item that will greatly improve all your photos is to make sure the critters in liquid are completely covered with liquid. So may pictures would be so much better if that simple process to reduce reflections was followed.