I decided to take a short walk in the Sussex countryside today with a simple macro setup, just a camera, macro lens and two flashguns. The Yongnuo YN560-III for off camera, and the Olympus FL-LM2 for on camera fill flash. I always like to travel as light as possible, depending on what the brief for the day is, so no tripod, insects don’t tend to hang around while you position your kit. I will give a full description of what macro kit I use in another post and some samples of what can be achieved even with fairly old equipment.

My walk took me through a meadow that was full of grazing sheep only a few weeks ago, now empty with the growing grass full of flowering clover.

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F13 1/250 Yongnuo YN560-III off camera

Also in abundance were dandelion clocks about to release their seeds across the meadow.

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F10 1/250 Yongnuo YN560-III off camera

All the hedgerows are now full with blackberries, honeysuckle, sloe berries, and other colourful flowers being visited by bees.

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F4 1/125 On camera Olympus flash

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F4.5 1/320 on camera Olympus flash

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F4 1/100 on camera Olympus flash

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F4 1/100 on camera Olympus flash

The bees were not the only hedgerow visitors, plenty of spiders too, the one below was just building or repairing it’s web.

Olympus EM-1 60mm Macro lens @F22 1/250 Yongnuo YN560-III off camera

Just a short post today that was a great exercise of using a limited amount of equipment, something that I like to do when I just use the Sony RX100 MkII.  Although the Olympus EM-1 since firmware update V4.0 features focus stacking, with a compatible lens it takes a sequence of images that it combines into a single image that gives greater depth of field. Unfortunately, you need to use a tripod with this method, that is ok for static subjects, but I have had limited success with insects.

Equipment Used:

• Olympus EM-1 MK1
• Olympus 60mm F2.8 Macro
  • Olympus LH-49 Sliding Hood
• Yongnuo YN-560III
• Sunpak diffuser
• Olympus FL-LM2

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