How To photograph a Deer Tick

For last week’s print edition of The Capital Times I was asked to photograph a studio shot of a deer tick. I was handed a small container with the tick in some liquid and given a general idea of the concept the editors wanted for the cover photo. As most people know, the biggest problem in photographing a deer tick is the size — smaller than a freckle. These ticks are smaller than the more common wood ticks that are found throughout Wisconsin, but they can carry Lyme Disease. The Capital Times story was about how hard it is to diagnose and treat this horrible disease.

Shooting photos in a studio has never been one of my favorite things to do since there are so many people who can do it a lot better than I can, but this seemed like an interesting challenge.

Knowing that the tick is so small, I had to secure everything since I would have such a low depth of field with the macro lens. It was a real simple set-up; basically a Canon 5D Mark II with a macro lens.

The 5D camera has a large sensor so even a photo of the small tick could be cropped quite a bit without losing much quality.

I took the tick and held it was one of those small tweezers from a Swiss Army knife. Then secured the tweezers with some clamp I found in the studio. The clamp fit nicely on a light stand so now the tick was ready to be photographed.

I used a couple of softboxes on each side and another light pointed at the drop cloth in back. With the camera on a tripod I was ready to start shooting. My biggest concern was bumping the stand holding the tick, knocking the tick off the stand. I figured if that happened I was done. There was no way I would find that little guy on the floor. Luckily, that didn’t happen and I was able to shoot with a number of different exposures and f-stops until I was happy with what I was seeing reviewing the screen on the back of the camera.

Copy this link if you want to see the story. http://bit.ly/cXOh3j

Cover photo for the Capital Time story on Lyme disease and the Deer Ticks. Steve Apps-State Journal.

The full frame photo before it was cropped tighter.

The Canon Mark 5D Mark II camera and bracket holding deer tick.

The simple setup used to photograph the deer tick.