Macro photography

[Phil]

Thanks guys.

I have been shooting at the biggest aperture possible to reduce shutter speed for bugs with ISO set to 400.
I will try reducing the aperture a bit and see how I get on.

Still thinking about getting a proper macro lens and now SWMBO has finished washing her hair my chances are increased..

I will have a read up about that lens, what is it best suited to and how much do you want for it?

[coolcat]

Originally Posted by Phil

Thanks guys.

I have been shooting at the biggest aperture possible to reduce shutter speed for bugs with ISO set to 400.
I will try reducing the aperture a bit and see how I get on.

Still thinking about getting a proper macro lens and now SWMBO has finished washing her hair my chances are increased..

I will have a read up about that lens, what is it best suited to and how much do you want for it?

It's a constant fast aperture of F2.8 so has the benefit of letting lots of light in and super smooth diffused soft bokeh.
Used in conjunction with the telecovertor it will give 280mm of reach at F4.
So a pretty fast telephoto lens.
I used it for anything from motorsport to portraiture

Only selling as I now have the Canon image stabilised version .

I would be looking for £200 for the lens and teleconvertor

[Rocket]

Originally Posted by Phil

Thanks guys.

I have been shooting at the biggest aperture possible to reduce shutter speed for bugs with ISO set to 400.
I will try reducing the aperture a bit and see how I get on.

Still thinking about getting a proper macro lens and now SWMBO has finished washing her hair my chances are increased..

I will have a read up about that lens, what is it best suited to and how much do you want for it?

For insects.
If you shoot at wide aperture you will reduce the depth of field. So you can end up with only a small part of the insect in focus. With no flash it is always a bit of a balancing act.

With no flash best option is on a really bright sunny day f8 shutter 1/200 and ISO no higher than 400 but start at 100
That is a good starting point and you can adjust from there.

You can of course open the aperture and have a very shallow depth of field if that is the look you want.

Another option is to stand back further and then crop the image. This will give more of the insect in focus.

[coolcat]

A couple of photos

The lens with my old camera and me attached to it at Brands Hatch.

Photo courtesy of Phil (Gatekeeper)

Doing what I do best lol by Jeff Cranwell, on Flickr

A few shots taken with the lens

IMG_3471 by Jeff Cranwell, on Flickr

20140330_110129320_iOS by Jeff Cranwell, on Flickr

This one taken with the teleconverter attached

Cubby by Jeff Cranwell, on Flickr

[Phil]

Thanks Jeff.

I'll give it some thought.

I'm interested because I love photographing my dogs.
I have a rescued Greyhound who loves to run when he can. This lens might be perfect to capture that.

[Phil]

Ok, I have been out today with my new, cheap lens (Sigma 70-300 "macro" lens.)
For what it cost, I'm really impressed. I think it's given me a great insight into what is possible and pushed me into honing my photography with this lens before finally migrating into something better...
Anyway, please, honest feedback gratefully received...
What do you think??

So, here are my recent results...

[coolcat]

Nice set Phil, first one is my favourite of them
Do you do any editing of your images or are they straight out of the camera ?

[Rocket]

They are pretty good. I think you are doing everything about right. Your lens is not going to be razor sharp but it seems to be doing pretty well.

Did you use flash or is that bright sunlight?

[Phil]

Originally Posted by coolcat

Nice set Phil, first one is my favourite of them
Do you do any editing of your images or are they straight out of the camera ?

Originally Posted by Rocket

They are pretty good. I think you are doing everything about right. Your lens is not going to be razor sharp but it seems to be doing pretty well.

Did you use flash or is that bright sunlight?

Thanks guys.
I'm really enjoying it.

Yes, I do edit my pictures. I use photoshop camera raw editor.
Sadly the images look a little flat straight off the camera.
I always shoot in manual mode.

Do they look overdone editing wise?

I didn't use a flash. Just relied on sunlight.

Funnily enough they looked a lot sharper before uploading to Photobucket..

[Rocket]

Well I think with the gear you have that is pretty good.

You may find one in fiftyish is REALLY sharp it is just pot luck really.

Flash would improve things further - it effectively becomes your shutter and maybe around 1/10000 sec, even at full power they flash at 1/1000 sec.

With no flash it is best to shoot on really sunny days and get your shutter speed as high as possible whilst keeping your aperture at f8 or f11

With flash it is better on cloudy days - the flash can become the major source of light and fire for maybe 1/10,000 sec duration. A lot easier to freeze the action.

I am surprised photobucket is working - others have had problems. They may well down sample your images for uploading and hence the quality may look worse. Flickr is much better for storing pics, you can upload jpegs at full resolution.