Paul's Photo Blog

As I was shutting the lights off and 'logging off' the house (i.e. shutting all the lights off and making sure the back doors were locked, etc.), I noticed a moth hanging out on the back sliding glass door. I see a lot of pictures of moths from the top, but not too many from the bottom. Looking at the various textures, I thought it would make for an interesting macro. So, I grabbed my 50mm f/1.4 AI-S and slapped the PK-13 extension tube between the lens and the camera. I also grabbed my still-ball-bungeed-paper-snooted flash, and experimented with different lighting variations. I didn't like the direct, focused light on the moth that the snoot created, thinking it was a bit too harsh and didn't really show the detail. So I turned the flash a little more sideways, using the diffusion created by the white paper to light the moth. And, since most people like sharpness across the entire focal plane, I turned the aperture ring up a bit to capture more detail in the wings. Personally, I like the selective-focused version just as well (because of the depth that selective focus seems to portray to my eyes), but I suspect more people will find this image more pleasing: