For a long time now, several years actually, I’ve been wishing to try a new approach to photographing snowflakes. Just how I’ve wished to try this involves a setup that can aid other kinds of macro photography also, whether the eyes of a big ole horsefly, a water boatman in a petri dish, or a butterfly wing.
Years ago, my wife and I occasionally did portraiture photography as a sideline. For that, I made a camera support similar to one I observed another portrait photographer had made for his studio—a vertical pipe on wheels. An arm holds a tripod head where the camera is mounted. The pipe construction enables rapid change from a high position to a low position without needing to goof with tripod legs.
Fast-forwarding to several years back, I added a second arm and made it into a little table. I place my camera on the top arm and point it toward the table below. Both the camera and the table can easily be adjusted up and down. However, this flexibility alone isn’t where I’m stopping with the rig.
Anyone who has done macro photography can appreciate the need for fine focus. Either the camera moves in/out, the lens moves in/out (though this changes magnification), or the subject is moveable. As I considered this need, a telescope focuser seemed to me to be the perfect solution. Its ability for smooth, fine focus would be superb, and snowflakes could be a delightful subject.
Finally, two nights ago, snow came. Just because it is snowing does not automatically mean gorgeously-shaped flakes are coming down. Very often snowflakes are covered with rime (see background). It might be that early (or late) in the storm, conditions are right to produce good flakes for a few minutes, but other than that, not so good. Just how would they be this time? I was soon to find out.
The macro stand was set up under a carport roof. We use Canon equipment, and Canon used to make a 1-5x macro lens. That is the lens we used for this.
To see the snowflake well for focusing would require a lot of light. To provide this, I used a 2’ x 2’ LED light panel. I already had this for taking flats for our astronomy photos. I had wired it to be used on an extension cord. This light would provide a bright, yet cool, light.
I hung the light panel on a carport pole, but let the base of it rest on the table on my macro stand. This would come in handy by providing backlight under the snowflake.
A 2’ x 4’ dark Plexiglas panel served as my inspection board. I would collect flakes on it, then place it on the hood of a vehicle under the roof where it was easy to search for flakes without additional flakes falling onto it.
Thankfully, at the beginning of this storm, I was able to find some flakes that were not rime-covered.
My previous efforts to photograph snowflakes usually involved lifting a snowflake from the inspection table with a tiny artist’s paintbrush, then placing it onto a microscope slide. However, the snowflakes often began to melt soon after being placed onto the glass slide. On the tip of the paintbrush, though, they did just fine. The plan for this effort was to shoot the snowflake right on the tip of the brush.
To hold the paintbrush, I used “helping hands” like is often used when soldering wires together. In an effort to not disturb the captured flake, I left the paintbrush in the clamp and held the whole apparatus to lift off a chosen snowflake. If everything worked as planned, I could set the stand on the telescope focuser table and be ready for photos. Occasionally, however, I would need to loosen the clamp gripping the paintbrush and rotate the flake for a better angle. The clamped paintbrush allowed the snowflake to nicely “hang out over the light.”
I’ve looked at a lot of snowflake photos over the years and considered the backgrounds photographers used. Some were all black, some white. Other photos have a mottled background of various color tones. One photographer even used a technique that reminded me of motor oil.
For this effort, I would be using a piece from a shower mat that has iridescent colors. As the viewing angle changes, the colors change. I placed this mat on the light panel. By inserting something between the top edge of the mat and the light
panel (I used a folded towel), I could change the mat angle and thereby also change the color behind the snowflake.
In addition to the LED panel, I also used a macro flash clamped to the front of the lens. This flash was 1/64 power to bump in a tiny bit of light without overpowering the delicate subject.
I focused the snowflake by turning the knob of the focuser rather than turning the camera lens. By holding a camera release in one hand and focusing with the other, I could shoot a lot of photos in short succession—shoot—tweak focus—shoot. This would potentially come in handy during post-processing.
So what would I do differently if shooting again tonight? For one, I’d like to have the snowflake collection board closer to shorten the trip with a snowflake on the paintbrush. Secondly, I’d like to change backgrounds more frequently. But, by-and-large, this has been my favorite way to photograph snowflakes to date.
Needle-shaped snowflakes began falling and photography seemed useless—but then, why not? We may as well see what our setup can do with them.
These needles were very tiny—like little hairs. And check out the detail. They look rime-covered. Now I wish I had photographed more of them.
.0625 (1/16) inch long and .005 inch thick
1.6 mm long and .125 mm thick
They were approximately this size: +