macro lenses

[MarkBarbieri]

The following question was asked in another thread:

This is not sarcasm, it is a serious question b/c I have not done macro work, but might like to in the future. What if the subject of your macro work is on the move, how could you use a tripod? Do you just wait for a lucky shot?

I don't shoot a lot of macro shots, so I'm answering based more on theory than experience. Perhaps a serious macro fiend can come along with a better answer.

The hardest thing about macro photography is getting DOF right. At high magnifications, your subject tends to be very close to your lens. DOF decreases as the distance from your subject to your focal plane decreases. If you shoot a 100mm lens set at f/22 on a 1.6x body and photograph a subject at 10 feet, you'll get about two and half feet of subject range in focus. If you shoot something 10 inches away, that drops to 0.13 inches.

So if you're are shooting a little bug that is scurrying about, you'll have a problem keeping him focused. It's not like you can stop down much more than f/22. Even at that aperture, you're next biggest problem is going to be having enough light. Freezing motion that magnified requires a good shutter speed. At f/22, that's hard to come by.

I would suspect that the best way to shoot moving critters would be to set up on a tripod, use lot's of flash power, pre-focus on a spot, and take your shot when your target hits your sweet spot.

 

[ukcatfan]

Thank you Mark.

Kevin

 

[Gdad]

I am certainly not a serious macro fiend but here are a few I took a while back of a drill press. While it was moving fast it was moving in a predictable way. I was happy with the way the speedlight froze the subject.

I find chasing after little critters much more challenging (frustrating).

 

[Michele]

I am certainly not a serious macro fiend but here are a few I took a while back of a drill press. While it was moving fast it was moving in a predictable way. I was happy with the way the speedlight froze the subject.

I find chasing after little critters much more challenging (frustrating).

Jeff-

I forget.....I know you got a new lens a while back. Are these taken with it? and what was it again?

 

[Gdad]

Jeff-

I forget.....I know you got a new lens a while back. Are these taken with it? and what was it again?

I got a 105/2.8vr which is a 1:1 macro lens- the last shot was with it. The first two were with my old Tamron 18-200.

 

[dcg0317]

I've tried and it's very hard, if you don't use a flash it next to impossible to frezze the motion of a bug on the move. You should always shoot in manual with a camera that has flash exposure metering technology, with Canon it's called E-TTL and Nikon I belive it's called D-TTL, this way you you can set your camera to whatever aperture and shutter speed you desire, and then just let the flash do its job, and also use manual focus.
He's a link with some good tips on shooting marco.
http://www.beautifulbugs.com/

 

[jann1033]

i am guessing you mean a regular external flash rather than a macro flash ring? if it ever stops snowing here i might get a chance to try it out...

someone on here( sorry can't remember who) has posted some where you could see the individual compound eye segments..what magnification would that be( it seems 1/1 wouldn't be enough but since i haven't tried it maybe it would....) just found the article where he mentions it's 4 or 5 x...so if you use auto focus extension tubes do they cut out the same amount of light as a teleconverter does> ie i stop per x? kenko told me the 3x converter cuts out 3 stops of light

love the tool photos gdad, i think that is what i find interesting about macro, opens a whole new world you never think about

 

[boBQuincy]

Check out "Secret Worlds" by Stephen Dalton. He made whatever equipment he couldn't buy, to produce stunning photographs of insects and small animals in motion.

 

[Gdad]

Mr. Greedy would not get his head out of the flower long enough to pose for a picture...

 

[jann1033]

I just wish I could get a bit closer with this lens. 4.9ft is quite a distance. I guess macro is in my future if I keep up this kind of shooting.

any idea what flower this is? very pretty
since we have winter back it'll be awhile till i take any bug shots but nice job gdad

 

[woody64]

From the San Diego Zoo thru the glass at the Komodo Dragon

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

In honor of Easter

 

[tinksdad]

Different flowers around the yard.

Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossom cluster

Rosemary Blossoms

Purple Lilac

All EXIF info imbedded

 

[DVC Jen]

Different flowers around the yard.

Cherry Blossom

WOW! I absolutely love this one.

 

[DVC Jen]

Different flowers around the yard.


Cherry Blossom cluster

Wow! I absolutely LOVE this one.

 

[GrumpyOne]

All of mine are dive related, which I suppose meets the topic.

Anemone shrimp living in a colony around a cone anemone. I was focusing on the one in the middle when the second walked in. During a subsequent shot at the top of the cone of a small cluster of shrimp, I got too close, bumped the cone and caused all the tendrils to pull in. That yanked most of the shrimp in as well.

Anemone Shrimp

 

[tinksdad]

Wow! I absolutely LOVE this one.

Thanks Jennifer!

 

[tinksdad]

All of mine are dive related, which I suppose meets the topic.

Anemone shrimp living in a colony around a cone anemone. I was focusing on the one in the middle when the second walked in. During a subsequent shot at the top of the cone of a small cluster of shrimp, I got too close, bumped the cone and caused all the tendrils to pull in. That yanked most of the shrimp in as well.

Anemone Shrimp

Nice! Oh the joys of shooting underwater. I say it has a added difficulty of "10" on top of surface shooting since you're adding buoyancy control and sometime fighting current or surge for that shot!!

Where was this taken? I see from your avator location that you live between some pretty interesting dive locations!

 

[We-Luv-Disney]

Heres a couple from this past week, we took a trip to Airlie gardens in Wilmington North Carolina. What a beautiful place!

 

[GrumpyOne]

Nice! Oh the joys of shooting underwater. I say it has a added difficulty of "10" on top of surface shooting since you're adding buoyancy control and sometime fighting current or surge for that shot!!

Where was this taken? I see from your avator location that you live between some pretty interesting dive locations!

Thanks. Bouyancy and surge are easy to acccount for once you're used to them (taking the DIR-F class really helped), knowing how to do a back-kick is highly useful for UW photography. My bane right now is white balance, which is why I'm heavily weighting RAW on my next camera. If I screw up the WB in the shot, it can be fixed in post processing. Over 1/2 of my non-macro shots have way too much blue in them, including many where I tried to do a manual white balance.

That shot was taken in Anilao, Philippines at a site called Basura (trash in Tagolog) in about 40 fsw but the site runs from ~15 to 60. All sorts of unusual stuff lives there and what's out changes every few hours. I'd love to do a late night/pre-dawn dive there some day to see what sort of weird stuff comes out then.

It'll be interesting to compare here to the Red.