Macros & Close-ups

10 Tips for Improving Your Flower Photos - Another good a

2013-03-29T18:14:41 -05.00

Another good article from DPS. I love to shoot flowers.

10 Tips for Improving Your Flower Photos

RE: Have You Tried A Reversing Ring - Thanks again for

2012-06-06T08:55:57 -05.00

Thanks again for the info. I'll probably end up with a Macro lens in the future. The experimenting is fun but frustrating.

RE: Have You Tried A Reversing Ring - Hi Chris, Rea

2012-06-05T22:07:14 -05.00

Hi Chris,

Really like it... It's the pre-digital generation, so a few years old now, and full-frame, which means at APS-C this already excellent lens is being used at it's optical centre.

One benefit is that, compared to lens reversal, the working distance here is 'huge', and so easy to get lighting in, as well as to not spook the subjects.

Although it's auto-focus capable, when using it for macro I only ever use manual focus... manual everything in fact, but then I was raised on manual everything 35mm film cameras, so I've no problem with that.

Have You Tried A Reversing Ring - Rob, Thanks f

2012-06-03T10:37:10 -05.00

Rob,

Thanks for explaining the focus issue. I'm not ready to commit to the Macro/Micro lens yet so I may give the lens on lens a try. How do you like the Tamron 90mm?

Have You Tried A Reversing Ring - Hi Chris, The

2012-06-03T00:14:33 -05.00

Hi Chris,

The shallow dof you are seeing is a consequence of the magnification. If you reverse a longer lens then the magnification will be less, and so dof will be more.

The 'tunnel vision' appearance is due to the optics not bringing a flat object in front of the camera to a flat focus at the sensor... If you focus on the centre of the frame then points away from the optical axis are actually progressively further away (pythagoras theorem), and with such shallow dof then these off-axis points rapidly fall out of focus.

One other method which helps a bit is to reverse one lens on another, rather than reversing directly onto the camera body... A 50mm reversed on a 100mm will, if memory serves, provide a 2:1 (twice life size) magnification... and very shallow dof, but less of the tunnel vision effect.

I used to do this, but graduated to the Tamron 90/2.8 macro lens a while back for 1:1 hand-held macros.

Having auto-focus for macro isn't that helpful, so I use manual all the time. The trick for hand-held is to lock the arms against your body or some other support, breath out and then rock your body back and forth to get sharp focus. Don't try to focus the lens itself.

You will still get a lot of missed focus shots, but that's really not the problem with digital as it was with film... I used to think myself lucky if I got three keepers from a roll of 36, but it also became very expensive.

If you are using a tripod for macro then a focussing rail is essential, and a lot more precise than trying to move the tripod itself, or the subject in order to achieve focus..

Cheers

Rob

Have You Tried A Reversing Ring - So I love lookin

2012-05-26T21:29:06 -05.00

So I love looking at macro shots. Being that I happen to have a camera and also love taking photos I thought I'd give macro a try myself. A dedicated macro lens can be had but usually at a significant cost. There are some older lens floating around one of the auction sites that can get you into a macro lens for around $200 but that's still a large chunk of change for me to drop on something I'm not sure about yet.

I came across "lens reversing" on a Flickr forum dedicated to macro photography using this type of set up. It's budget friendly and lets you play around some. There are a few snags that I'm still working through and if there's any interest in this I will update in the next couple weeks.

What I've found so far is this. There are rings you can purchase from those online auction sites that will allow you to mount a lens backward on your camera body using the lenses filter threads. I picked one up for $5. It's solid metal and fits the camera body without any slop or fudging. The threaded side is a fixed size. In my case it's 49mm to fit the 50mm lens from my newly acquired Praktica film camera. The film camera was $15 at the local Goodwill. So now I also have a great tool to play with to work on thinking about exposure before snapping. Trying to make exposure more of an intuitive process. But I digress. I'm into my macro experiment for $20 at this point and learned a pretty good lesson. When you reverse the lens you no longer have aperture control so you need a lens with an aperture ring to control aperture. The aperture has really no noticeable effect on DOF it's used more for controlling light. You also have no auto focus and this part gets tricky. The area of the reversed lens that your camera will see to capture the photo is the front element. In the case of my 50mm, there is some curvature to the front element. This results in a very, very small area of focus. I actually measured it to be about 7mm. That's not just front to back either, that's also side to side. I'm almost positive it's because of the curvature of the front element. I also had to be about 5-6" (13-15cm) from the subject to get that into focus. Handheld would be impossible. Camera needs to be on a tripod and either tripod or subject need to be moved to assist focus.

What I want to try is a longer focal length lens with a flatter front element. None of my current lenses have a 49mm filter thread. I'm looking for a fixed length long lens at a reasonable price to test my theory and hopefully get some shots worth posting. If you're interested or have any input, please jump in.

RE: Food Photography An Introduction - Thanks for the t

2012-04-24T01:02:16 -05.00

Thanks for the tips. Will give it a try.

RE: Food Photography An Introduction - They touched bri

2012-04-23T13:46:47 -05.00

They touched briefly on it in the linked article but if you look at a lot of food photos, they are almost always lit from the rear off to one side. The light is usually slightly higher than the food but low enough that it creates texture as it "rakes" across the food. Use a mirror or white card opposite the light in front to bring up the shadows a bit. I'm still experimenting too.

Food Photography An Introduction - Chris - Looks li

2012-04-23T13:21:30 -05.00

Chris - Looks like a pretty nice photo. I have tried some food shots but find it difficult to get the lighting right.

Food Photography An Introduction - Great post. Than

2012-04-23T13:16:18 -05.00

Great post. Thank you. I can't wait to try out the cotton ball steam trick. I've gotten into food photography recently. Having fun with it. I have a couple photos posted. Nothing great. Here is my favorite.

Food Photography An Introduction - Great shots, now

2012-04-22T09:34:03 -05.00

Great shots, now I am hungry - LOL.
DPS is a great website with tons of fantastic photos, good info on shooting techniques, and ideas for photographers.

I receive their weekly newsletter every Thursday - very interesting for sure.

I would recommend signing up for it.

Food Photography An Introduction -
2011-08-15T18:31:52 -05.00
Food Photography An Introduction

RE: Does Mirror Lock-Up (MLU) Help Macro Shots? - Thanks for the c

2011-05-10T19:11:40 -05.00

Thanks for the contribution, Kisats. The accompanying article has easy to compare shots:

http://www.cameratechnica.com/2011/04/26/dslr-mirror-lock-up-worth-the-effort-or-not/

Does Mirror Lock-Up (MLU) Help Macro Shots? - MLU helps with c

2011-05-10T15:48:00 -05.00

MLU helps with certain shutterspeeds, somewhere between 1/20 sec to couple seconds.

2 seconds delay that is following mirror lockup action is enough to reduce vibration caused by mirror movement.

Only most steady tripods are capable compensate camera vibration due mirror slap that happens right before shutter movement.

Effect is visible at max resolution with most close macros, still life, telephoto of far landscape details.

http://vimeo.com/22878525

Does Mirror Lock-Up (MLU) Help Macro Shots? - I like the timer

2011-05-04T20:13:00 -05.00

I like the timer too for stationary objects... I believe the lock up is most effective when really trying to avoid any stray light,

but others would know better then me!

Laura

Does Mirror Lock-Up (MLU) Help Macro Shots? - Another from DPS

2011-05-04T19:53:28 -05.00

Another from DPS:

Does Mirror Lock-Up (MLU) Help Macro Shots?

I have the same 100mm macro lens and only recently I tried MLU, but I didn't do comparison shots like here. To me, the MLU image is of the same quality of the non-MLU with timer (a technique I've been using for ages), showing that our finger pressing the trigger maybe have the most impact.

Also, as one points in the discussion, what even made the author post a few more shots, possibly the difference will only be noticed in lower shutterspeeds. I don't see any difference eithe between the two new samples (again, MLU without timer vs non-MLU with timer)

What do you think?

RE: Using macro lenses - Agnis, In my

2011-04-25T19:05:13 -05.00

Agnis,

In my case it was the snail movement - no matter how surprising that is! Often I had part of it focused, but the head moving, for instance. And sometimes I think they just wanted to go away from the clarity coming from the window (as they often turned their back to my camera).

RE: Using macro lenses - The most likely

2011-04-25T13:20:20 -05.00

The most likely reason for blurred pictures is your hand trembling or auto focus " hunting" not snail movement. In real macro photography I recommend to photograph with manual focus if photographing hand held:
1) Choose your magnification by manually focusing on the subject (often maximum magnification)
2) Choose DOF by adjusting aperture (aim at 8-11 or even smaller aperture if light condition allows it, but 8-11 usually has best optical performance)
3) Try to find additional support for camera/lense, e.g. knee, branch, or maybe monopod.
4) Focus no the subject by moving closer or further from the subject. Take photos when subject appears to be sharp in the viewfinder.

By using manual focus you have much greater chance to get object in focus because auto focus hardly will be able to follow even smallest camera movements in real close up.

RE: Macro lenses - DOF is roughly t

2011-04-25T13:01:23 -05.00

DOF is roughly the same with the same magnification in close up (macro) photography and is little affected by focal length. Longer focal length gives you longer working distance but it is more difficult to photograph hand held (180 mm life size lens I would recommend to use tripod). Fixed focus dedicated macro lenses definitely are superior over zoom lenses in terms of optical characteristics. Shorter focal length lenses as a rule costs much less.

Macro lenses - I use the Canon

2011-04-25T11:04:37 -05.00

I use the Canon MP-E65mm it allows up to 5:1 ratios and when paird with the MT24EX dual macro flash system is unbeatable. The following was shot with the Tamron 90mm f2.8 DiMacro with the EX580MkII speedlight.

http://www.shutterpoint.com/Photos-ViewPhoto.cfm?id=864150

Cheers,
Mark.