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Shooting Macro with Strobe Flash Systems
By Julie Larsen Maher with Joe Abene and Bruce Foster
Jewels that glow with brilliant, iridescent colors in shapes and details that catch the light and my eye. The collection ranges in size from 1/2 inch to some as big as my fist. They are all precious.
These are not rare gemstones, but various herps (short for herpetology, a branch of zoology dealing with reptiles and amphibians) at the Bronx Zoo Reptile House and Central Park Zoo. These small frogs, toads, turtles, and geckos have intricate and interesting characteristics that are not only beautiful, but aid in their survival from eastern Madagascar to South America to the western United States. Most are highly endangered, on the brink, due to loss of habitat from deforestation and destruction.
As staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society, located at the Bronx Zoo, my role is to gather visual information through photography of wildlife and wild places-this time, on the distinctive traits of these diminutive reptiles and amphibians-but backgrounds and shadows can be distracting, and often, the subjects are on the move. The solution is a new flash setup from Nikon, the R1C1 Wireless Close-up Speedlight system, which enables excellent lighting effects which bring out details like the herps' bright, bulging eyes that resemble trail maps of the landscapes where they live.
Casting call for this assignment includes:
The crested gecko, thought to be extinct until the1990's, was then rediscovered. This docile gecko has no eyelids, its eyes topped with tiny points that look like eyelashes.
The Panamanian golden frog, the cultural symbol of Panama, is nearly extinct in wild. Its amber skin, sprinkled with small dark splotches, has waxy appearance.
The tomato frog, as round and red as its namesake, spends most of its time burrowed in the ground, ambushing passing insects.
The Parker snake neck turtle whose shell, when hatched, is no bigger than a quarter. Its neck is most of its body mass at hatching.
The Vietnamese mossy frog lives in water just a few inches deep and looks like the moss-covered rocks where it hides for protection.
The red-eyed tree frog, its ruby eyes round like a child's ball, has glowing green skin that matches its surroundings in the rainforest.
The azure (blue) dart frog is rare, with a limited range. It is very poisonous in the wild, its skin giving off a toxin that can be fatal to its animal predators.
The yellow-throated day gecko is one of the few diurnal (active in the daytime) geckos. It drops its tail when threatened to distract its predator, and most times, the predator is content to eat just the tail.
The Wyoming toad, with its warty skin, is critically endangered and extremely rare. Today there is a small population of Wyoming toads found outside of Laramie, Wyoming, a result of a joint reintroduction program lead by the USFWS and supported by AZA Zoos.
Using my Nikon D2X digital camera, Lexar Professional 133x CF cards, the R1C1 Speedlight system, and the expertise of the Bronx Zoo and Central Park wild animal
keepers, each subject only requires a few shots to get the image I am looking for. The R1C1 kit includes a ring that attaches to the lens filter treads
via an adapter (there are several in the kit for various lenses), two SB-R200 wireless macro flash heads, and the SU-800 commander unit. The two flashes
snap on the ring and can be tilted for different effects and dramatic lighting. In addition, I am able to work at a very close distance to my subjects.
The flash system is like a "mini-studio", only as big as the size of my lens, which surrounds my subjects. Settings and compensations are easy to set and
change on the commander LCD panel.
www.wcs.org
www.bronxzoo.com
www.centralparkzoo.com
Julie Maher's Bio
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