Up Close with Nature

Hisham Marmin's Macro rig. You can find his blog here, and his Facebook page here. You can also find more macro rigs here. His macro rigs consists of Pentax K5, SMC Pentax D FA Macro 100mm F2.8 WR3, Pentax AF160C Macro Ring Flash. However, instead of using the ring flash the way it is intended to be, i.e mounted onto the front of the lens, this is what he does. The images here should be self

CW's macro rig. Canon 7D, Tamron SP90 (and extension tubes), 270EX II, FMMB and concave diffuser. You can find some info on FMMB here and here. More macro rigs here. All images by Cheewai. 270EX II (wireless) on FMMB (Front Mounted Macro Bracket, which allows the speedlight unit to always stay in front even as you zoom and the lens extends out. You can find some info on FMMB here and here.

As mentioned in this post, I have been testing this simple yet effective diffuser for my Canon MT24EX twin flash. It's a variation of SteB1's cup diffuser. He's one of the most brilliant macro experts I've met online! The front of the diffuser does tend to get in the way when i try to approach my subjects. I trimmed a bit off the PP material on the front and the side but ended up with light

Since the concave diffusers seem to be in the trend now, and the light from these were really well diffused with no hot spots, I had to make myself a pair of concave diffusers as well. Prior to this, I have been using my version of "cup diffuser" for the MPE65 1X-5X macro lens / MT24EX macro twin flash combo for a couple of months now and loving the light from it. More about the cheap yet great