Bees

[Rita]

This morning I noticed quit a few bees on the bush outside my balcony so tried some macro. These were taken with a 60mm macro. The conditions were not ideal in that there was a breeze blowing so I did what I could with settings to counteract the movement. I would like to have seen the images being more clear and sharp. There is room for improvement so any suggestions, feedback, critique would be appreciated.

1, f 3.5 SS 1/1600
missed my focus a bit on this one



2. f4 SS 1/800



3. f4 SS 1/1000

[Shadowman]

Nice captures and background treatment.

[Rita]

Thank you John.

[Cantab]

These are nice shots. I tried some bee photos last year, basically they were all duds but had a bit more success a few days ago. If only bees would stay still a little longer

I see you were using a 60mm macro. Are these photos heavily cropped or did you move in very close?

[NorthernFocus]

Nice clean BG and great colors on all of them. You didn't do yourself any favors in the DOF department with those wide apertures. Made focus that much more critical. That first shot would have been awesome if the eye was in focus. Overall a lot better than I could have done.

[deetheturk]

Hi Rita, nice colourful images, I agree with Dan about your D.O.F. issue, were you shooting in S.Priority mode?

When i shoot 99/100 its in M mode ISO 200, SS 200 and between F11 anf F16 with diffused flash!

Hope this helps, give it a go and let me know how you get on

David

[Rita]

Bruce, I got in as close as possible while either peering through a railing or hanging over the railing and then I also cropped later.

Dan, thank you for your comments. I will try again tomorrow and see if I can improve on these....practice, practice, practice I don't know about your last sentence I have seen some very impressive posts from you!

David, thank you for kindly sharing the settings that you use. I was shooting in manual mode and took the settings that gave me the faster shutter speed because there was a breeze blowing. I will try M mode tomorrow and see what happens. These were taken mostly in bright sunlight, sometimes a bit of shade depending where the bee landed, would you still use a diffused flash in sunlight?

[deetheturk]

Hi Rita, yes I almost always use flash although it can have it's problems with reflective bugs but I have much more success when I use it

[Mark von Kanel]

Interesting stuff! ive been asked to do some bee pics for a local keeper. I hate the bloody things though so im going to have to steel myself I have a 105 nikon macro but use it mainly for portrait work, and i was wondering weather to shoot from a distance and crop to improve DOF or to try true macro, ill have a go at both and post my results, (if you dont want them here ill start a new thread.)

thanks

[deetheturk]

Mark, i'm sure Rita would not mind you posting here but your pics might get lost in her thread, so i would start a new one, as to your question personally i like to get as close as poss, but it is a lot of trial and error, looking forward to your images!

Rita, this is one i took earlier in the year with flash on a bright sunny day, as long as you shoot in raw you have a good chance of bringing back any blown highlights




Cheers David

[ajohnw]

Hi Rita. I have been trying out Olympus macro with the same lens but haven't used flash yet. Couple of things.

You might find continuous AF is the best option providing it doesn't keep deciding to track on some other part of the shot due to camera shake. I'm not sure if tracking can be switched off on the E-M5. I've done more with the E-M1 now and it can on that. If that keeps happening for you the usual focus/expose/shoot via one button press is best. There is an option that prevents the camera exposing unless it is in focus. Mixed feelings but at least it does indicate a problem and the button can be released and tried again. In the past I have tried manually focusing by moving the camera with a 7x magnified view but keeping the subject in the middle of the view can be tricky. That was with a 100mm manual macro lens. 60mm might make that easier.

I've found that it was difficult to always get the camera to focus at higher magnifications - when the lens is rather close to the subject. If the 1:1 switch is used that problem is fixed. It presets the lens to the closest focus distance so if not in focus the camera knows that it needs to focus out and does so rather than focusing straight through the subject. Frankly I feel they should have added a slower focus mode for macro work but the 1:1 switch is easy to use.

You seem to have taken the bee shot from around 2ft. At that distance and some what closer the clip on flash should clear the lens. It's something I have been meaning to check - just how close can the lens be to the subject while the flash illumination still hits it. You could try some shots on anything to sort that out. The best way to use flash for macro is usually to set max flash sync speed and an aperture that will cause the flash to provide most of the light. That may be tricky in bright sun light. I've found that things generally work out if the shutter speed is 1/200 sec or faster and that is usually possible even at F14 in decent light. I've only really shot at F14 as limited time for macro and didn't want to have dof problems. I need to spend more time on that but also like to post bigger shots which will make dof problems worse..

They are interesting cameras to use for macro. I decided to completely ignore the usual comments that AF and IS are no good for macro work. The IS definitely helps hand held and given the other choice of a highly magnified view AF is rather attractive and can work as well but will have it's problems at times. Don't quote me but I'm getting the impression that of the focus square is position 1/2 on and 1/2 off the subject the camera will focus part way down the side of the insect just where it should do rather than on it. It may not be 1/2 and 1/2 but some position does seem to do this. I suspect it's actually more on than off. It will take a lot of shots to find out.

Out of interest Olympus's pet pro uk photographer recommends the macro lens for portrait work. Maybe Oly want to sell more who knows.

John
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[Brownbear]

Hi Rita,

I like the 3rd image for the beautiful focus on the head and the eyes, and the sense of motion. Nicely done.

[Rita]

Mark, ditto to what David said. I don,t mind if you post here. We are all here to learn from each other.

John, thank you. I am going to try again now as the bees are back. I will post my results later.

Christina, thank you. It,s funny that this one was in focus because it was just a quick grab

[Rita]

Okay, I tried David's suggestion of using flash and here are a few of the results. The f11 is for sure better than what I used. Today, instead of relying on AF I used manual assist and that seemed to help as well.

I think they are improved over yesterday? These were shot at f11 SS 1/250 ISO 200.



1.


2.


3.


4.

[Brownbear]

Hi Rita,

Just to say that the original 3rd image is still my favourite for the best focus, beautiful colours and bokeh. (if it were my image I would crop the flowers on the right hand side) The lighting is also softer.

In this set the 3rd image is also my favourite (nice capture of the bee), but I still prefer the 3rd in the first set because the background is beautiful ( less busy), the lighting is softer, and also because the flowers in these shots overwhelm the bee. Easy for me to say, I know this is very hard to do.

[Rita]

Appreciate your feedback Christina. I also like the original #3. The colours are much brighter on this last set and I find that I am leaning far more to the softer shades of the original set myself. However, I think the second set is better focus, generally speaking. I will see if I can tone down the business in the last set and see what happens. Nothing to lose and all to gain by playing

[DanK]

Your original #3 is a very nice capture. BIF (bug in flight) photos are very hard to do. Of the second set, I think the third is best because the the eyes are more in focus. Given how wide your aperture was (more on that in a minute), you did very well indeed.

Depth of field in macro work is very thin, and like David, I recommend that you try much smaller apertures. I never shoot bugs at less than f/11. I usually use f/13. I don't always use flash in bright sunlight, but one way or the other, you need a lot of light to allow you to use both a narrow aperture and a fast shutter speed. With flash, I usually use ISO 200, f/13, 1/125, but the flash lasts much less than 1/125, so the flash freezes motion.

Keeping the bug close to parallel to the sensor also helps, by minimizing the depth of the subject.

The key is getting the eyes in focus. It is possible, but very hard, to do that with autofocus, because either you or the bug will move. A fairly common way to handle this is to get the focus approximately right, then move the camera forward or backwards slightly until the eyes pop into focus. A monopod helps. If you are going to do this, it is best to put the AF on a back button. That way, you won't accidentally cause the camera to try to focus again when you take a picture. Alternatively, you can turn off AF on the lens.

If you use flash, it should be diffused. There are lots of do-it-yourself plans on the web. My current rig is this:



The diffuser is made out of two Coke cans, duct tape, and two sheets of baking parchment paper. You can find this one by googling "lord v" and "coke can diffuser", I think.

Here's one I did in bright sunlight, but I think I used a flash. (Note the black background, which is often a give-away for using a flash when there is a large distance to the background.) It was a windy day, and the echinacea kept blowing around, so I had to take quite a few to get one keeper.



Keep it up. Macro can be very frustrating at first, but it is a lot of fun once you get used to it, and you are off to a good start.

[Rita]

Dan, thank you for your detailed feedback. I did use f11 today which did help, definitely better than what I used yesterday. Also today I tried David's suggestion and used a flash with a diffuser. As I don't have a diffuser I made up a cheap & quick one using a sheet of paper towel. I experimented inside with it and it seemed to work When I get a chance I will rig something better up.

"Keeping the bug close to parallel to the sensor also helps, by minimizing the depth of the subject." I will keep this in mind for the next time I try macro.

The focusing yesterday I relied on AF, that wasn't smart today I used AF with MF and this went much better for me. However, I didn't think about moving forward and backward to fine tune the focus. This sounds much better than trying to do it on with the focus ring, I had even heard about this before and never thought about it at the time. Will also try this next time as well. What I did find when focusing was that by the time I got the eyes in focus the bee had moved and then they were out of focus and around and around I go.

I am going to work on this some more and see what I can do with macro.

Again, thank you for taking the time to help.

[ajohnw]

Your original #3 is a very nice capture. BIF (bug in flight) photos are very hard to do. Of the second set, I think the third is best because the the eyes are more in focus. Given how wide your aperture was (more on that in a minute), you did very well indeed.

Depth of field in macro work is very thin, and like David, I recommend that you try much smaller apertures. I never shoot bugs at less than f/11. I usually use f/13. I don't always use flash in bright sunlight, but one way or the other, you need a lot of light to allow you to use both a narrow aperture and a fast shutter speed. With flash, I usually use ISO 200, f/13, 1/125, but the flash lasts much less than 1/125, so the flash freezes motion.

Keeping the bug close to parallel to the sensor also helps, by minimizing the depth of the subject.

The key is getting the eyes in focus. It is possible, but very hard, to do that with autofocus, because either you or the bug will move. A fairly common way to handle this is to get the focus approximately right, then move the camera forward or backwards slightly until the eyes pop into focus. A monopod helps. If you are going to do this, it is best to put the AF on a back button. That way, you won't accidentally cause the camera to try to focus again when you take a picture. Alternatively, you can turn off AF on the lens.

If you use flash, it should be diffused. There are lots of do-it-yourself plans on the web. My current rig is this:

The diffuser is made out of two Coke cans, duct tape, and two sheets of baking parchment paper. You can find this one by googling "lord v" and "coke can diffuser", I think.

Here's one I did in bright sunlight, but I think I used a flash. (Note the black background, which is often a give-away for using a flash when there is a large distance to the background.) It was a windy day, and the echinacea kept blowing around, so I had to take quite a few to get one keeper.

Keep it up. Macro can be very frustrating at first, but it is a lot of fun once you get used to it, and you are off to a good start.

I don't think Rita is using as much magnification as you might think Dan.

According to the scale on the lens 1 to 4 is 0.34m, about 13ins. If I put that into a web calculator it reckons that the magnification should be 1 to 3.4. Going on Rita's exifs she is shooting from a distance of 0.6 to 0.7 m around 25ins, The web calc reckons that gives a magnification of 1 to 8.7 but in real terms it's probably well past 1 to 10. The calculator reckons the m 4/3 dof at F11 is 37mm but as the magnification will actually be lower it should be more than that.

I can give some idea of what a shot at 0.3m covers on an E-M5. The mag ratios on the lens go 1:1 at 0.19m, 1:1.3 at 0.2m, 1:2 at 0.23m and 1:4 at 0.34m so this shot is a lot closer to 1:4 than 1:2. Quicky from a SOC jpg. The dreaded yellow needs attention and some white is a touch blown. This is the full frame.



This was taken crouched using the rear screen otherwise i wouldn't have go away with such a low shutter speed. It was taken using S-AF. Sometimes it's better to use continuous. I feel people are going to have to accept that mirrorless is different especially if they shoot macro hand held. The calculator reckons my dof is 2mm at these settings. The alternative is a magnified view. Been there and done that. I found 7x to be the most reliable down to 1:2 which means in FF terms macro involves waving a 60x7x2 = 840mm lens about. Does wonders for magnifying shake as well. This is what Rita is effectively doing with manual focus assist. When the focus ring is turned the view magnifies automatically. I suspect she will find it impossible to use at normal macro distances hand held. S-AF and C-AF can be used and can work with some practice. I'm also wondering if burst mode with focus might help.

"Macro can be frustrating" very true and it does pay to persist.

The calculator is here if anyone is interested. Based on simple lenses so will never directly relate to real macro lenses.

http://www.mystd.de/album/calculator/

John
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[Brownbear]

However, I think the second set is better focus, generally speaking. Nothing to lose and all to gain by playing

Hi Rita,

I think the 2nd set has great DOF. Anyhow I see that you have are receiving great advice that I will be reading. Thank you for sharing your learning exercise - always helpful to others.

Indeed, and I'm looking forward to seeing your next set.