Photography by Rick Sammon

All this week: the Battle of the Close-up Photography Tips: Juan Pons vs. me.

Hey, this is all in good fun!

Away we go!

For Juan's tip, go to his site.

Here are my tips for today: Use a ring light and use it carefully. Then, in the digital darkroom, remove any reflections that the flash tubes may have caused.

I photographed this red-eye tree frog with my Canon MR-14EX Ring Lite:

Canon MR-14EX Macro Ring Lite for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Ring lights can be costly. An alternative is the Ray Flash.

Here is a movie I made about the Ray Flash. Good fun and good product.

I like using ring lights over flashes because, by adjusting the power output of the flash tubes, you can get shadowless lighting, as well as ratio lighting. You can also get top, side and bottom lighting.

When you are working in the digital darkroom, look for reflections of the flash tubes in the subject's eyes. You can easily remove reflection with the clone stamp tool.

Photograph by Rick Sammon

Ring lights are designed to be used on true macro lenses. I took both of the close-up photographs in this post with my Canon 100mm macro lens.

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

If you like this post, please share it with a friend. All you have to do is click the twitter icon below. And don't forget, you can follow me on twitter for almost daily tips.

For more info on close-up photography, and photography in general, check out my apps. Click here to start the photo fun! Juan and I developed Butterfly Wonders (which features a section on close-up photography) and Life Lesson We Can Learn From Mother Nature together.

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Explore the light,

Rick