Chasing Macros - Different lighting sources

There are three difficulties in Macro Photography in my experience.

1. Patience
2. Focus
3. Depth of field

The first two comes with practice. In most cases as with insects, you really can't rush into the shot. Due to the risk of scaring them off, I usually start from a bit far away and then close in while increasing the magnification. This way, if the guy decides to take a leave, I ll still have something recorded. In other words, I will have few safe shots. Focusing definitely improves with practice. A 1mm sway of focus can mean the difference of a bugs eyes been off focus as opposed to on focus. Trust me, you can rarely see it in the back of your camera... and its devastating to find that out after the shoot.

As for the depth of view, its a subjective issue. Some images are great with shallow DOF while some begs for more. So, its always a good idea to take two shots of each subject. One with shallow DOF and one with a deep DOF. But when you go for a deep DOF (as you close down the aperture), the camera lose a lot of light partly by been so close to the subject. An external light source can help you a lot to get some of these shots for sure. Also remember that the higher f numbers only increase the DOF by very little in macro work. So, when I say deep, I mean f/20 or f/22 at least. I have personally tried out ring lights and the results have been really disappointing.  Unless you go for a real expensive ring light, they may not put enough light on the source to freeze the motion. This is specially true with my 100mm lens due to the larger minimal focus distance. So, tried out a speedlight with a diffuser and came up with these results (All except the last one).

Please do note that all images are copyrighted. Comments are always welcomed. 

Akila.