Shooting skills of insects

Lead: The bodies of insects are generally very small. If you want to shoot clearly, you need to use macro photography. Come and have a look with me!

Macro photography means that the size of the photographed image is larger than the original size of the object, and the ratio of the two is generally greater than 1: 1. To achieve real macro photography, the distance between the lens and the image is much more important than the distance between the lens and the object. For optical cameras, macro photography is generally achieved by using professional accessories, such as amplifiers, to amplify objects. Macro insect photography needs more skills and participation, and the process is much more interesting. For example, you can see how a dragonfly like a bomber flies to its prey; How romantic butterflies in the grass mate; Flowers shuttle through it. How busy bees are collecting pollen. In the sun, you can see insects emitting metallic luster or burning flames. Nature is magical and beautiful, and moving stories are staged all the time, depicting beautiful moments. Shooting insects is an excellent way to get close to nature. It should be my greatest gain and satisfaction to experience the true meaning and touch of life in the camera.

One: Digital equipment for macro insect photography.

Compared with traditional cameras, using digital cameras to shoot insects has several obvious advantages: because the main body of this macro photography is dynamic insects, the success rate is low, and the low-cost advantage of digital cameras is outstanding; Nowadays, many civil digital cameras have the function of macro photography. By adding close-ups and iron rings, it is simpler and more convenient than traditional photography. Traditional cameras pay attention to magnification in macro photography, but in digital cameras, I think whether there are enough pixels is the key.

It is generally believed that the suitable distance for insect photography is about 30cm- 120cm, which is mainly due to the vigilance against insects. So telephoto shooting in this environment is very important. Nowadays, there are many models with telephoto lens and macro function in portable digital cameras, which are really sharp tools to capture the wonderful moments of insects. But if you want to shoot excellent macro photography, the first one is a SLR digital camera with a macro lens. One more thing, insect photography IS usually carried out in the wild, and tripod is not allowed in many cases, and the use of telephoto inevitably requires a long shutter time, so choosing a digital camera with IS (Image Stabilizer System) function or a camera with high sensitivity and good imaging effect will greatly improve the success rate.

Second, the common skills of macro insect photography

The key to the success of macro insect photography is the high definition of the subject, which is also the biggest difficulty. Mainly related to focusing, my experience: in macro photography, the automatic focusing of the camera is almost unreliable, so the first step you have to do is to learn to skillfully use the digital manual focusing in your hand. As far as the mainstream civil digital cameras on the market are concerned, manual focusing is very clumsy. It takes time to accumulate experience to do this first step well. Only in this way can you have a chance to stay calm when capturing wonderful shots.

When focusing, the choice of focus should fall on the insect's eyes, because you are taking macro photography, which is very important. My usual practice is to combine the spot metering of insect heads, which is done in more than 90% of photos. In daily photography, we usually use the method of locking the focus and then translating the camera to re-compose. However, in macro photography, even a small displacement may cause out-of-focus and lead to the failure of the whole photo, so it can be avoided. I have had too many failure cases, so generally speaking, I prefer to adopt the post-cut method.

Almost all civil digital cameras have no real optical SLR, and the electronic lens pickup is limited by the resolution, which often deceives your eyes. Therefore, if the "bug friend" you are aiming at is willing to cooperate, you must make full use of the opportunity and take as many photos as possible.

In order to highlight the main body and blur the messy background, large aperture and high magnification zoom are often used. As for exposure compensation, the use of flash and other skills, we should analyze specific problems and not discuss them in detail.

Three: the best time for insect photography

My friends often ask me how I found so many insects. According to my experience, in summer, the peak of insect activity is after the rain clears. At this time, the activity frequency of small insects is obviously slowed down because of the rain on their wings, and the lighting conditions are ideal. It is indeed the best time to shoot.

Some insect photographers believe that sunrise in the morning is also an ideal time, based on the fact that after a long night, the body temperature of insects begins to rise, and they usually come out to move, and the dew in the morning slows down their activities. The oblique sunlight in the morning is a brilliant light for photographers. It is difficult for civil digital cameras to perform well only in low light conditions. Digital camera has high saturation and high definition under strong light, large aperture and high shutter.

A friend said that I also wanted to photograph insects, but every time I didn't get close, it flew away. Insect photography, patience is as important as luck, and it is common to get nothing in an afternoon. In fact, it is not difficult to get close to them as long as they are not overly frightened. I once played butterflies for a while. Butterflies are dancing among the flowers, and each flower is only stop for a minute. But I found that they still had a certain trajectory, so I took the method of waiting for him, focusing on measuring a flower in advance, and firing as soon as the prey entered the range. Unfortunately, I am not a butterfly, and the result is often empty.

I'll give you two special tips: when insects mate, they are very lingering and often can't catch up with each other. It is not difficult to shoot this romantic moment; Among insects, dragonfly is the easiest to shoot, and her vigilance is not high. A netizen is quoted here as saying, "When a healthy and happy dragonfly just stopped on the grass to rest, its wings spread out neatly on its back. If it feels safe and comfortable, it will relax its muscles and let its wings droop at a small angle. " Meeting this opportunity is the best time to shoot dragonflies. As long as you approach slowly, you will get something.