First venture into macro photography

Setun

Have recently become the proud father of canon's 100mm macro and having a lot of fun with it. Took these over the last few days, and if anyone can offer any advice/criticism it would be great. Thanks!

silverside

on the spiderlegs, i see from flickr you are "playing with small depth of field" - but the DOF now looks way small to me and as composition i don't like it.

well captured wasp

my stomach now feels queasy so any chance you could stick to "nice" insects instead of flies ?

Fajitas!

I think you're doing well for your first go at macro anyways!

The first two are my favourites.

The first one is great, but you could have done with a bit faster shutter speed. Second one is great too.

Keep it up!

5uspect

Macro photography is always really nice but the problem is (and I'm still learning this my self) is that the temptation to minimize the DoF can sometimes take from a shot.

Then again its all subjective!

I really like the wasp out of that set too.

Setun

silverside wrote: »

on the spiderlegs, i see from flickr you are "playing with small depth of field" - but the DOF now looks way small to me and as composition i don't like it.

Cheers, I agree with the DOF on the spider. If I find the bugger again I'll reshoot

silverside wrote: »

my stomach now feels queasy so any chance you could stick to "nice" insects instead of flies ?

How do you think I felt processing them I kinda like photographing them in close-up though, they look more like something in a sci-fi film than those ambiguous black buzzing things that have no purpose on this planet other than annoy the hell out of people. They're very interesting macro subjects.

Phototoxin

I do quite like the wasp pic :-)

oshead

Macro becomes more effective when you get in real close. Insect photography is all about detail and sharpness of image. Try and fill the frame with your subject and set the apperture from around f8 - f11. Set the lense to manual mode and move slowly in or out to gain correct focus. Takes a while to get used to manual focus. With a little training, your eye being more sophisticated is better able to detect correct focus than the camera.

If you have a flash you should use it and diffuse it. The larger and closer you get the flash diffusion the better. With a flash you should be able to get good handheld images at very slow shutter speed (1/25th of sec at the slowest) if you underexpose the ambient light by 2 stops. For natural light shots, try and brace your camera and keep shutter speeds 1/125th of a sec and faster. Don't be afraid to up the ISO speed to 400 or more to enable faster shutter speeds. A noisy image is more desireable than a motion camera shake blurred image.

When approaching highly skitty insects, move at a very even slow pace. Try not to cast a shadow on them. Most insects have movement sensors on top of their heads and can detect minute changes to air pressure too. So move in slowly and evenly and if possible from below them.

Once again I stress. Get in close and fill the frame. Thats what macro lenses are made for.

I hope this helps.
Dave OS

Setun

Phototoxin wrote:

I do quite like the wasp pic :-)

Yeah the armour those little guys have is impressive. He was quite aggressive to other insects, he didn't seem to bothered by me though. A few midges landed on the apple and he was having none of it! Also another wasp landed and the two locked mandibles, the photographed guy above held out and won. Didn't really get a good shot of this as the sun disappeared behind a cloud so was too dark to capture it nicely.

Setun

oshead wrote: »

Macro becomes more effective when you get in real close. Insect photography is all about detail and sharpness of image. Try and fill the frame with your subject and set the apperture from around f8 - f11. Set the lense to manual mode and move slowly in or out to gain correct focus. Takes a while to get used to manual focus. With a little training, your eye being more sophisticated is better able to detect correct focus than the camera.

If you have a flash you should use it and diffuse it. The larger and closer you get the flash diffusion the better. With a flash you should be able to get good handheld images at very slow shutter speed (1/25th of sec at the slowest) if you underexpose the ambient light by 2 stops. For natural light shots, try and brace your camera and keep shutter speeds 1/125th of a sec and faster. Don't be afraid to up the ISO speed to 400 or more to enable faster shutter speeds. A noisy image is more desireable than a motion camera shake blurred image.

When approaching highly skitty insects, move at a very even slow pace. Try not to cast a shadow on them. Most insects have movement sensors on top of their heads and can detect minute changes to air pressure too. So move in slowly and evenly and if possible from below them.

Once again I stress. Get in close and fill the frame. Thats what macro lenses are made for.

I hope this helps.
Dave OS

Thanks that's a great help. Might head out to the back garden now actually and get some fresh air! If I come back with a wasp sting you'll be getting an angry PM

challengemaster

lol@killing fly + sticking in lightbox

Nice shots

Setun

challengemaster wrote: »

lol@killing fly + sticking in lightbox

Nice shots

lmao
It wasn't a lightbox! I'm not a nutter, I swear!

Nah seriously though, it was on a white windowsill. Had the flash on, then used the render > lighting effects tool to give it that warm healthy lightbox-y glow.

5uspect

Daddio wrote: »

then used the render > lighting effects tool to give it that warm healthy lightbox-y glow.

Cheater!