Green and Wet

[woty87]

Hi all, I was supposed to finally get out today with my camera, but then it rained. I had to settle for what I could shoot from my porch. I've been admiring the macro work on this site, so I tried these, albeit with my decidedly un-macro lens. What do you think? How can I improve them?

f6.3 1/15 iso400


f8 0.6" iso100 w/tripod

[Tim Bond]

John
Probably the first thing that I would do is separate the main subject from the background a little more. When they are both the same color it is hard to determine which is which. Changes in DOF might help also. I have never done macros of just leaves. When I do flowers I try to fill the entire frame with the image.
Tim

[Steve S]

Find a way to isolate a small portion of the tree, with a good background you can blur to a smooth color. Or even clip a small limb and move it to a better location.

[Geoff F]

The second shot, with a darker background has worked much better.

Personally, I would have preferred to concentrate more on one specific leaf, or a small group of leaves which would become the centre of attention. Just as though it was an animal or flower head.

But those rain drops do work well in the second image.

When it comes to photographing flora a strict macro lens often isn't so important as when 'chasing bugs'. For example, my Canon 24-105 L lens isn't strictly a macro lens but often outperforms my 180 mm macro lens for this type of general shot.

If you end up with rather long exposures be aware of potential problems caused by wind movement. Also a cable shutter release, or using the self timer, can help; and the mirror lock up option can also prevent shutter bounce on long exposures.

And one other tip, which I have found to work on occasions. As Steve said, moving the intended subject to a better location often works well. So what I sometimes do is to take it indoors and shoot with the light from a window. And the crafty bit is, to stick a printed backdrop on the wall. Some nice shots of interesting skies or distant leaves etc can work.

There is a bit of a knack to getting the distance between subject and backdrop correct so it looks natural. And sometimes, if you have sunshine coming through the window, it is possible to position the camera/subject/ sun angle in such a way that any shadow falls clear of the backdrop.

ps. I recommend attempting to reposition just the first two of those three items.

[woty87]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Geoff, I wish I could have focused in on the one specific leaf a bit more, but I think I was butting up against the minimum focus distance and couldn't get any closer. I was using a 18-200mm zoom lens.

I did experience the wind problem you mentioned. The second photo with the longer exposure, I had to take several shots because the wind blurred many of them.

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep working on it. Regards, John.

The second shot, with a darker background has worked much better.

Personally, I would have preferred to concentrate more on one specific leaf, or a small group of leaves which would become the centre of attention. Just as though it was an animal or flower head.

But those rain drops do work well in the second image.

When it comes to photographing flora a strict macro lens often isn't so important as when 'chasing bugs'. For example, my Canon 24-105 L lens isn't strictly a macro lens but often outperforms my 180 mm macro lens for this type of general shot.

If you end up with rather long exposures be aware of potential problems caused by wind movement. Also a cable shutter release, or using the self timer, can help; and the mirror lock up option can also prevent shutter bounce on long exposures.

And one other tip, which I have found to work on occasions. As Steve said, moving the intended subject to a better location often works well. So what I sometimes do is to take it indoors and shoot with the light from a window. And the crafty bit is, to stick a printed backdrop on the wall. Some nice shots of interesting skies or distant leaves etc can work.

There is a bit of a knack to getting the distance between subject and backdrop correct so it looks natural. And sometimes, if you have sunshine coming through the window, it is possible to position the camera/subject/ sun angle in such a way that any shadow falls clear of the backdrop.

ps. I recommend attempting to reposition just the first two of those three items.