Macros from My Summer Vacation

[pake]

Every summer my wife and I join her family to spend a couple of weeks at a summer cabin in a small town called Saarijärvi. It's one of the highlights of the summer and I do spend quite a few hours taking macro photos there. Previously I've been shooting with my old E-M5 but this time I was finally able to see what my E-M10II can do. I think the results are visibly better so I'm happy I've made the switch. I think all but one were taken with the E-M10II and Oly 60mm with 1-2 Raynox DCR-lenses attached. Godox TT685o was the light source.

So... Photos? Sure, he we go...

010-EM107092 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Ants | Muurahaiset - 025-EM107147 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Caterpillar - 057-EM107355 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Salticidae | Jumping Spider - 074-EM107431 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Damselfly | Hentosudenkorento - 187-EM108196 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Damselfly | Hentosudenkorento - 195-EM108257 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Damselfly | Hentosudenkorento - 204-EM108290 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Raspberry Clearwing | Vattulasisiipi - 235-EM108439 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Butterfly | Perhonen - 299-EM108618 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Horse-fly | Paarma - 320-EM108707 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Weevil | Kärsäkäs - 345-EM108811 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

392-EM109316 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Robber fly | petokärpänen - 401-EM109426 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

403-EM109442 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Spittlebug | Kaskas - 410-EM109482 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

To be continued...

 

[pake]

Jumping Spider | Hypykki - 427-EM109585 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Beetle | Sittiäinen - 429-EM109595 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Spider | Hämähäkki - 448-EM109723 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Spider | Hämähäkki - 458-EM109782 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Spider | Hämähäkki - 463-EM109807 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Bush Cricket | Hepokatti - 487-EM109967 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Bush Cricket | Hepokatti - 502-EM110011 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Fly | Kärpänen - 509-EM110046 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Spider | Hämähäkki - 541-EM110208 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Jumping Spider | Hypykki - 583-EM110397 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Caterpillar | Toukka - 621-EM110498 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Dragonfly | Sudenkorento - 653-EM110649 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Raspberry Clearwing | Vattulasisiipi - 674-EM110754 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr

Raspberry Clearwing | Vattulasisiipi - 688-EM110809 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr



Whole album can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/teemu_p/albums/72157716213891773 and here (with some blog text): https://teemup.net/blog/saarijarvi-2020/

Hope you liked 'em.

 

[Panolyman]

Wow, that was a very productive summer break Teemu.
I'm just wondering whether you actually had any time with your family whilst there?
Fantastic range of mini-beasts there and you must have the patience of a Saint.

 

[Danny_SWE]

Wow! Awesome shots! Very good result with the setup. Just when I was thinking about some Raynox lens for christmas present to myself

 

[pake]

Wow, that was a very productive summer break Teemu.
I'm just wondering whether you actually had any time with your family whilst there?
Fantastic range of mini-beasts there and you must have the patience of a Saint.

Yeah, I did manage to squeeze in some family time as well... Just kidding. I don't think I spent THAT much time in the bushes. And most of the people were just sunbathing next to the pond anyway - and that isn't my thing.

And thanks! Well, I was on vacation so I wasn't in a rush. I just sat on my travel chair in the bushes and waited for bugs to get close enough. Worked well with the jumping spiders and damselflies.

 

[pake]

Wow! Awesome shots! Very good result with the setup. Just when I was thinking about some Raynox lens for christmas present to myself

Thanks!! My advice is: Get 'em! You won't regret it, I promise.

 

[Macroramphosis]

These aren't very good, Teemu.

THEY'RE STUPENDOUS! You and Hayath obviously share some DNA. Brilliant, thanks for sharing.

Like you, I like to wait until "they" come to you

 

[moonraker]

very nice, any focus stacking?

 

[retiredfromlife]

Very nice set, I would be happy if I did half as well.

 

[pake]

very nice, any focus stacking?

Thank you - and nope. Every one of them are single shots. The key is to ignore the "rants" about diffraction and shoot even at f/20 if needed. I think most of the photos are taken at f/16 but for some I used f/18 or even f/20. Does it show? Maybe. Does it matter? Nope, not really.

 

[Henk van Slooten]

Two fantastic series, so you can see what patience can yield, (and a little camera and photo technology)
The red spider in the second series is not a spider, but a mite (Trombidium holosericeum)

 

[pake]

THEY'RE STUPENDOUS! You and Hayath obviously share some DNA. Brilliant, thanks for sharing.

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[pake]

Two fantastic series, so you can see what patience can yield, (and a little camera and photo technology)
The red spider in the second series is not a spider, but a mite (Trombidium holosericeum)

Thank you (also for educating me about the mite!).

 

[Pluttis]

Fantastic set of macro shots...now I got the urge to get macro lenses again

 

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

Very nice Teemu.

 

[felipegeek]

@pake, Fantastic series! Viewed full screen it feels like I'm the bug-sized one. Your patience and compositional understanding at the macro-level is outstanding. Good to know that diffraction is not limiter for macro work. I know bugs have some wild colors and their body parts reflect light in myriad ways to better hide from predators and attract mates I did find some of the images had high vibrancy/saturation levels that were bordering on distracting on my sRGB display and on my AdobeRGB display they were really intense (more reds/greens).

 

[pake]

@pake, Fantastic series! Viewed full screen it feels like I'm the bug-sized one. Your patience and compositional understanding at the macro-level is outstanding. Good to know that diffraction is not limiter for macro work. I know bugs have some wild colors and their body parts reflect light in myriad ways to better hide from predators and attract mates I did find some of the images had high vibrancy/saturation levels that were bordering on distracting on my sRGB display and on my AdobeRGB display they were really intense (more reds/greens).

Thank you for the feedback!

To be honest I tend to increase the vibrancy slider in Lightroom a lot (& a bit too much) for my macro work. I feel it's one genre where it (ie. strong colors) can contribute quite a lot to the image but still... I agree I go overboard sometimes. I use sRGB since it's the format 9/10 people use and therefore is the safest bet. I'll try to control myself better with the colors in the future though.

 

[RS86]

Thank you for the feedback!

To be honest I tend to increase the vibrancy slider in Lightroom a lot (& a bit too much) for my macro work. I feel it's one genre where it (ie. strong colors) can contribute quite a lot to the image but still... I agree I go overboard sometimes. I use sRGB since it's the format 9/10 people use and therefore is the safest bet. I'll try to control myself better with the colors in the future though.

Great photos man!

I don't want to sound like a jerk either, but I'd like your photos to have less vibrancy/saturation. This is of course a personal preference and the viewing screen & its calibration is an important factor. Although my guess is that we have both calibrated screens.

The neon-blue and the greens are a bit distacting to me too. It makes me wonder which of these critters have the blue naturally like that and what don't/if they don't.

On Dxo Photolab I usually use at least 10 of ClearView and this makes the photo more saturated, so I have to compensate on the saturation adjustment. Personally I like natural colours, but it's a fine balancing act, because as you say saturation & vibrancy makes macro photos look better.

Personally I might need to test vibrancy more as I haven't used it much.

Congrats especially on that red mite photo. I have couple of photos of the same critter and it's one of the hardest one's to capture. They move so fast and almost never pause, while you want to get as close as possible, because they are so small.

 

[Bushboy]

Yeah, cool shots man.
The jumping spiders yes! flies and other ugly things, not so much.
I liked the saturated colours, really made the pics pop. The multi eyed jumping spiders, wicked!

 

[RichardC]

Both sets are fabulous images.