Hi everyone, my new macro setup with a motorized focusing rail is finally ready – and with that, my next project begins. 😊 I’ll start with smaller subjects and gradually work my way into focus stacking with the rail. I’m really curious to see what I can achieve with this setup, especially when it comes to magnification and fine detail. Alongside my Canon RF 100mm Macro, I’m particularly looking forward to experimenting with my Laowa 25mm f/2.8 Ultra Macro 2.5–5×. And because 5× magnification apparently still doesn’t give me enough to play with 😄, I designed and 3D-printed my own adapter that allows me to attach an additional Raynox macro lens to the front of the Laowa. I have absolutely no idea yet how useful – or crazy – this combination will turn out to be, but that’s exactly what I want to find out. 😄🔬 Over the summer, I’ve already been collecting quite a few subjects for this project. Everything I found interesting has been preserved in a mixture of approximately 60% alcohol and water. Among them are a hornet, a stag beetle, cuckoo wasps, several different bees, and quite a few other little creatures. Surprisingly, a lot of them came from a rather unusual hunting ground: the skimmer of our swimming pool. 😄 Instead of simply throwing them away, I started collecting and preserving them for future macro sessions. So this opens up a completely new area of macro photography for me: controlled indoor shooting, extreme magnification, tiny movements with the focusing rail, and finally stacking all those images together. It may take a little while before you see the first results, though. Besides work, I still want to make the most of the nice weather and spend as much time as possible outside with my camera. ☀️🐝📸 So for now, this will be my bad-weather project. When the sun is shining, you’ll find me outside chasing insects with my camera – and when the rainy days arrive, I’ll move indoors and continue experimenting with the focusing rail, the Laowa and focus stacking. 🌧️🔬

Barry was fantastic to photograph and the perfect subject for demonstrating camera settings and macro technique during my workshop at the Welsh Camera and Optics Show with Carmarthen cameras. His calm nature allowed me to slow everything down, explain what I was changing and show how small adjustments could transform the final image. Swipe through from the incredible curl of his tail to his colourful head and the remarkable details hidden within his skin. A huge thank you to animalcwtch for bringing Barry and for all the care and hard work that went into the session. It allowed me to concentrate on teaching, knowing the animals were being looked after throughout.

Trying out a Zhongyi 55mm F2.8 lens on the canon R6 mk2 x5 magnification at 1/200 ISO 1600 f8 and 1/4 manually set on a canon 430 ex 2 speedlight and Neewer diffuser. Luckily enough there was one crab spider out waiting for a meal, I had thought they had all done a runner due to the heat but this one remains.

Just sat down after a busy day looked out of the door next to me an found this dragonfly sat right on to of the bird feeder, I quickly put the 150-600 on to the camera and managed to get this shot before if flew away. In my rush I forgot to lower the shutter speed but the denoise in lightroom did a great job

Of course cool looking insects will get their pictures taken, but there is a list of plain-looking and exceedingly common insects that may be over-looked simply because they don't look interesting, and because they are so common one can always get around to photographing them "tomorrow". One day, I decided to have a go at what may be the most boring and common of all insects -- a grass veneer moth. I supposed everyone everywhere will be familiar with these small, cylindrically formed moths that accumulate at porch lights and fly up in abundance when you walk across grass. There are many species, and some even have modest color decorations (but they are still "meh"). Well, the result was a lesson! This one was Parapediasia teterrellus, and I certainly appreciated the reward of seeing the well-defined and variably shaped scales. I really need to photograph other species. Maybe tomorrow? 🤔 📍 Eastern Michigan, USA 📷 Canon 90D (DSLR crop sensor) 🔎 Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5x-5x ultra macro 💡Kuangren dual head flash / Home-rolled diffuser