macro practice

[Stagecoach]

Hi Rita,

No concerns about lighting or DoF (even if it is or were slightly out) with these but I still wonder about the image quality.

Your subjects and compositions are great but looking at the settings used along with the flash I would expect to see a better image quality, by that I mean there is no part of the image that appears tack sharp and clean to me. It may be that this is a restriction of the camera and lens, but I suspect not, or it may be due simply to cropping or enlarging to a size that is unfair.

One of the things I did when first getting into macro was to practice using absolute ideal conditions to determine exactly what image quality I could achieve with my rig. I do not know how much you have experimented but as an idea find a dead fly or similar sized bug, something with hair on, put it on a piece of paper indoors and with your rig on a tripod using whatever stability/shake reduction means available for your camera (mirror up, remote release, timed etc) set at 1/250, f/11 (and various either side), base ISO with flash and use the images to determine PP methods and a pixel width size to determine the best IQ you can achieve.

Grahame

[Rita]

Grahame, your feedback is most appreciated. These were cropped a lot but I will sure do what you have suggested. As soon as I come across a dead bug I will give it a try.

[JBW]

Grahame, your feedback is most appreciated. These were cropped a lot but I will sure do what you have suggested. As soon as I come across a dead bug I will give it a try.

I found that leafs were a great teaching tool. Just as tough to get a really sharp macro of a leaf with the advantage of no movement?

[Rita]

Brian, I did have a hard time getting the focus for the spider. It was quite dark where it was and I was guessing on the focus because I couldn't see it in my view finder Also, thank you for the tip on using leaves I will give that a try as well as the dead bugs.

Christina, thank you.

[DanK]

Grahame, your feedback is most appreciated. These were cropped a lot but I will sure do what you have suggested. As soon as I come across a dead bug I will give it a try.

That was my guess. These the fly and bee are definitely better than your first set, but they didn't seem fully sharp, and viewed in the lightbox, the fly looked like an extreme crop: not very detailed, and grainy.

I know nothing about your equipment, but to get crisp shots of bugs, you need some kind of equipment that will make the bug cover a substantial part of the sensor. There are a lot of options, including a dedicated macro lens, extension tubes or macro diopters on a regular lens, and reversing a regular lens. Different people have different preferences among these choices. For work that is close to 1:1 magnification, my own preference is for a dedicated macro lens, with extension tubes added to get higher than 1:1. When hunting bugs, I most often use a 100mm macro lens, either alone or with a 36mm extension tube, which gives more than 1.5:1. The photo I posted in this thread used that combination. However, for people starting out, I generally suggest avoiding anything higher than 1:1 because it is too frustrating at first. If you post the question, others will tell you what they use to get closer.

[ajohnw]

Brian, I did have a hard time getting the focus for the spider. It was quite dark where it was and I was guessing on the focus because I couldn't see it in my view finder Also, thank you for the tip on using leaves I will give that a try as well as the dead bugs.

Christina, thank you.

Switch the live view boost on Rita. The camera will see better in the dark than you can - assuming you are using an E-M5?

John
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[Rita]

Dan, to fill you in on what I am using I have an Olympus E-M5 with a 60mm macro. The images were cropped quit a bit so that I could fill the image with the subject. I start to see how I have over done this.

John, I know I have live view but what is live view boost? That is something I am not aware of.

[ajohnw]

It's an option in the menu's Rita. The default setting attempts to show the light levels as they will be in the photo - but only when you press the button 1/2 way.

It's in menu ----------- the gears - D - live view boost. on/off

It works rather well. I took some shots in a cave in Turkey and couldn't see where the camera was pointing until I turned it on.

You might also like to look in --------- the gears - A - af mode and select continuous af but not the one with the tracking option and try that. with a single central AF square. Tracking may work but camera shake might cause it to track the wrong thing. With either AF will only function when the shutter is 1/2 pressed.

What flash are you using?

John
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[Rita]

Thanks so much John. I will try this out

[DanK]

Dan, to fill you in on what I am using I have an Olympus E-M5 with a 60mm macro. The images were cropped quit a bit so that I could fill the image with the subject. I start to see how I have over done this..

That equipment should be fine. You just need to get closer.

Here's an exercise I recommend. As I think you mentioned, macro is often done by focusing the lens first and then moving the camera. I suggest practicing that with something inanimate, under good lighting, to get used to the distances. Focus the lens fairly close, and slowly bring an object into focus by moving slowly forward. Once you get the hang of his at your starting focal distance, try shorter and shorter distances, until you are using the lens at minimum focusing distance.

[ajohnw]

That equipment should be fine. You just need to get closer.

Here's an exercise I recommend. As I think you mentioned, macro is often done by focusing the lens first and then moving the camera. I suggest practicing that with something inanimate, under good lighting, to get used to the distances. Focus the lens fairly close, and slowly bring an object into focus by moving slowly forward. Once you get the hang of his at your starting focal distance, try shorter and shorter distances, until you are using the lens at minimum focusing distance.

All very well Dan but Rita wont see if the subject is really in focus unless she uses something like a 7x magnified view - try it with the live view on your camera. The problem with the 7x view is that all of the subject can't be seen at higher magnification, add a bit of camera shake and imagine using a 7x60x2= 840mm lens on a full frame camera and it's easy to see why it can even difficult to get all of the subject in the middle of the frame or for that matter even be sure it is in focus. I've done this with a manual 100mm macro lens which admittedly is nearing twice as bad and can tell you it's extremely frustrating.

John
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[DanK]

John,

First, the point of the exercise is not necessarily to get precise focus, but rather to get a feeling for distances, to help with focusing at close distances.

But more important, you can get precise focusing this way, although with some misses. This is a very standard technique in macro photography. Live view isn't very useful because the bugs don't stay put. I have never used live view with bugs. I use the technique I describes often, usually with a crop, 100mm macro, and often an extension tube. For stability, a monopod helps, but Lord V uses just a stick. Check out my site for some results.

Dan

[ajohnw]

John,

First, the point of the exercise is not necessarily to get precise focus, but rather to get a feeling for distances, to help with focusing at close distances.

But more important, you can get precise focusing this way, although with some misses. This is a very standard technique in macro photography. Live view isn't very useful because the bugs don't stay put. I have never used live view with bugs. I use the technique I describes often, usually with a crop, 100mm macro, and often an extension tube. For stability, a monopod helps, but Lord V uses just a stick. Check out my site for some results.

Dan

Yes Dan but Rita only has live view so to see the difficulties and solutions try it on your camera which I assume does have live view.

The reason I chimed in is that I have exactly the same gear as Rita.

John
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[Wavelength]

First set is good....second set is classic

[Rita]

John, in response to which flash I have it is just the one that came with the camera. I want to get a better one but it will have to wait for awhile.

Nandakumar, thank you.

[ajohnw]

I had a look at number 2 in the first set Rita. Glad to see you are getting closer - roughly a mere 160mm - 6 1/2 in from the front of the lens giving a mag of over 4:1. F11 should give a better dof than this but I would use F14 as it will still capture eye detail if conditions are suitable. Focusing is the problem with that one and little else maybe a bit extravagant with the pp.

If you can get down to around 125mm - 5in from the front of the lens you will get significantly bigger images as that will give about 1/2 sized images on the sensor. Just have to hope the flash clears the lens as that's probably the main limitation on how close you can go.

This is the sort of full resolution image you can get of smaller spiders at 1/2 size on the sensor but using a Pen so yours would a bit bigger. Focused as Dan suggests using a 7x magnified view using a manual 100mm macro lens. Many shots were spoiled because i couldn't see all of the insect when the shot was taken. If I switched off the mag view to frame after focusing I usually just lost the focus.

http://www.23hq.com/ajohnw/photo/8163926/original

John
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[DanK]

Ah, I didn't realize that the EM-5 lacks an optical viewfinder.

If the EVF is high-enough resolution, the same technique would probably work. When you move the camera for focus, you can't be extremely precise. Instead, you try to trigger the shutter as the portion of the image you are worried about (usually the eyes) come into focus. When I do this, I assume that many of the shots will miss slightly, and when I see them on the computer, I delete a large number. Some, however, will hit the nail on the head.

That's common (at least for me) with any focusing method, doing field work with bugs. Neither I nor the bugs stay still. So regardless of the focusing method, I get a lot of failures.

However, the initial reason I suggested the exercised was to get a feeling of where the camera needs to be. If you are going to position a camera to obtain focus, you have to have a feeling about how close to get. It's usually closer than people starting out think it will be.

[Stagecoach]

Dan,

I too use the exact same method as you but I have read that this is not quite so feasible with an EVF because of the refresh rate if you are trying to get macro type focus on a critters eyes, if there is slight movement of the critter.

Not sure if this is the case with all EVFs but I can certainly understand the problems it could cause.

[Rita]

Wow lots of feedback. I am going to try all the suggestions given, practice with them, and see what works the best with what I am using. I am determined to conquer my issues with macro

[JBW]

Wow lots of feedback. I am going to try all the suggestions given, practice with them, and see what works the best with what I am using. I am determined to conquer my issues with macro

others are better at macro than I am but i am finding that subtle is a big concept in macro. Little corrections or adjustments make a big difference.