Hi Jody,
I'm impressed that you could even carry all these pieces attached to your lens never mind shoot freehand 2mm mites! Why the particular Sigma flash? Any special features over the Canon or Metz?
I like all the pictures. The first two show the insect with another creature ? spider or is that the shell after the innards are sucked out? For sure Mike Spinak will look at these and would know more than I do! Why is the focus seen as a diagonal? Going from mid left down to the right lower corner. Is this an artistic interpretation in photoshop or some effect of the lens?
The detail of the insect's bristle back drops off so fast. I guess that is just the narrow depth of field. Have to ever tried focus stacking? If so, have you ever achieved good results without a macro rail setup?
The 3rd image is my favorite since unlike the creature in the first 2 images which is giving full attention to the prey or whatever is in its jaws, the creature in the 3rd picture could be planning to go for us as he has nothing else retaining his attention! I wonder whether or not there is room to sharpen and increase the contrast curve over the eyes to suggest it might be looking for what to eat or bite!
With this particular picture the angle of the shot makes it appear as if the creature does have intent to come toward us and is somewhat a threat. That's good. Whenever we ask outselves about intentions it means the picture has captured life. The fact that all the corners are blurred at the insect comes from a misty background and then is sharply defined suffiently enough to be a real center of attention is excllent. I hate the current obsession with even clarity to the corners of lenses. This picture would be much less itneresting if it was uniformly sharp and everything could be identified.
The last picture, I guess is of a moth. I find it hard to "get it" as the moth does not have sufficent world around it. The picture seems to have insufficnt room to contain it. Now this is merely my own idiosyncratic response and is not meant to pass for some ruling of merit or otherwise.
I do wonder though how the photograph might look if the material around it were cloned to at least double the size of the picture without magnifying the moth. I do feel that this would not be a wasted excercise. Not a big issue, just me thinking out loud!
Thanks so much for sharing your expertise in macro photography. I do love your work!
Asher
BTW, where on earth did you find your subjects?
