insects

7 Tips To Improve Your Macro Photography

French photographer Emilie Talpin did not pick up her first camera until 2018 but within just a few years, she became both an OM SYSTEM Ambassador and a highly respected photo educator best known for her favorite photography genres: macro and nature.

ExoSkeleton by Andrei Duman

These Bug Macros Required 8,000 151MP Photos and 86 Hours of Editing

Growing up in a communist country, we had no access to or real knowledge of the outside world. With the information that we now take for granted tightly controlled, we were living in a bubble. When communism ended, my entire concept of what the planet and all living things were all about changed quickly and dramatically.

Using a Flash for Insect Photography

I've shot thousands of pics of insects without flash and tens of thousands with flash. When the lighting is bright and sunny, the results can be good without flash. But when I venture out in pursuit of photo ops, I often encounter poorly lighted situations which are better with flash. If you study the work of experienced insect photographers, you'll find that most of them use flash.

A Review of the 7Artisans 60mm f/2.8 Mark II Macro Lens

Macro photography in the field is not always easy or comfortable, often requiring long hours outdoors in the heat. So now more than ever, I’m seeing the benefits of lightweight lenses and bodies.

A Portfolio of Bees — Our Helpful Insects

As you all know, bees help us put food on the table. Their pollination of California almonds alone has been valued at a billion dollars. They have also become my favorite photographic subject. I wrote about this last September.

Scientist Captures ‘The Fastest Front Flipping Insect’ in Super Slow Motion

Dr. Adrian Smith—a scientist who is perhaps best known for his educational videos on YouTube—has released another fascinating super slow motion video highlighting a tiny little insect you've probably never heard of. They're commonly called jumping plant lice, and they're "the fastest front-flipping insect" on the planet.

Spark Conservation with Backyard Photography

I’m not your typical conservation photographer. Many conservation photographers and filmmakers spend their careers traveling to infrequently traversed crevices of our earth in pursuit of untold stories of nature and wildlife. I am not so lucky to have traveled the globe, but I have experienced worlds unknown to most. I photograph bugs and share their stories in hopes of changing public perception of insects and spiders.

How to Photograph Bugs in Front of a Sunrise

I’ve been taking photos for a long time. That said, I got into the bad habit of taking tons of disjointed photos. That is, I was not thinking of my work as project-based nor was I using my photos to really tell stories. Over the last few years, however, I’ve engaged in more project-based work. Last summer, I created several photo stories of various insects and this summer, I tried something entirely new – a photo series depicting insects and spiders awakening to the sunrise.

A Review of the Olympus STF-8 Macro Twin Flash

Last year, Olympus Singapore loaned me a pre-launch unit of their new STF-8 Macro Twin Flash, together with their OM-D E-M1 and M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro for a test-run in the field. I've had the set for about a week -- it was easy to use and the results were pretty good, although it took some time for me to get used to focusing using the LCD.

These Macro Photos of Colorful Insects Look Like Masked Faces

Fine Art photographer Pascal Goet has been capturing macro photos for 26 years, but it's only today that his work made its way onto our radar. His series Mask & Totem features some of the most colorful, anthropomorphic insects he's photographed—insects that looks like mysterious, intricate masks.

A Brief Review of the Venus KX800 Macro Twin Flash

Back in April, the Chinese camera gear maker Venus announced its new KX800 macro twin flash, which looks like an external flash unit with three tentacles bursting forth from the top.

Photographer Thomas Shahan, the "Bob Ross of bug shots," got his hand on an early unit and just released this 6-minute hands-on review.

Shooting Insect Macros on the Cheap with a Reversed Lens

If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to achieve high magnification in your photography, you need to know about the reverse lens macro photography technique. Reverse lens macro photography has allowed me to achieve the magnification I couldn’t come close to with my more expensive equipment.

Stunning Macro Photos of Bees Courtesy of the US Geological Survey

Once in a while we stumble across a great archive of public domain or creative commons imagery that just blows us away. Sometimes it's historical photos, other times beautiful photos from space, but this time around it's neither.

Thanks to the US Geological Survey's Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab Flickr, we now have access to over 1,200 gorgeous macro photos of bees and other insects.

ArnoSync: An Impressive DIY High-Speed Insect Photography Rig

There are DIY projects that just about anybody can do -- for example, turning an old film canister into a flashlight -- and there are DIY projects that have a very specific "Y" in mind.

The ArnoSync High-Speed photography rig falls into the latter category. But even if you don't have the engineering prowess to build it yourself, it's still worth taking a look at what this home-brew rig can do.