Here is a small collection of photographs from Highfields park. These were taken with a Pentax 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and a diffused flash.

Some people take in-field macro shots on a tripod. I’m not really a fan of this and the insects often move about quickly. That’s why I use a flash. Flashes dump almost all of their energy in about 1/2000th of a second, or faster. It’s really hard to get sharp hand-held macro shots without one. To blur the image by less than ten pixels at 2x magnification I’d only be able to move 20 microns. This is easy in 1/2000th of a second, but in 1/40th of a second I’d have to make sure I move at less than 0.8 mm/sec.