Some close ups of plants...

Any details on what you used (Lens etc) as can't see EXIF details.

All these look a little soft. But without details can't offer any advice.
 
:agree:
 
Ah isnt there?, i havnt checked.
Well the lens used; were macro filter lens thats it, the +4 and +2 or some times i use them together. As for the settings i used i cant remember now as depended on what need to adjust. Ill have to check the settings in fact so its records Exif data but some photos did i think.

Yeah some are little soft and i know about the chromatic purple colouring. Down side using filter lens.
 
I agree the CA is quite severe on some of these. Are they significant crops?

Quite like the bold colours and strong contrast though.
 
Yeah there were cropped but only little on the edges.
The CA is bad not allot I can do i dont think with using them filter lens. I would like a DSLR with a dedicated macro then shouldn't have that CA problem, or is there some thing i can do to minimise it
 
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AH thanks that's really useful I shall see what I can do.

PS the top two were really small flowers by way if that helps.
 
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What was your aperture setting? What was your light settings?

I'll echo what Tim said colours are very vibrant and think you have done well with filters used to get close.

I would recommend you look here... Some very good tips and advice on Filters you have used.
 
TimmyG said:
I agree the CA is quite severe on some of these. Are they significant crops?
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Tim, I believe Mike is using close-up filters. I recently bought a set to see how severe the chromatic aberration is with close-up filters. It turns out to be sufficiently severe that you can see it clearly (depending on the subject of course) even if you don't crop at all. Here is an example taken with a +2 close-up filter - this is the entire frame.



and here is the same subject taken with my Canon 500D +2 achromat



Tintin124 said:
I would recommend you look here... Some very good tips and advice on Filters you have used.
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That thread is about achromats Bryn, and I believe Dave is using close-up filters. It's true though that you use close-up filters in exactly the same way as achromats, but with rather different results.

MR Foxx74 said:
Well the lens used; were macro filter lens thats it, the +4 and +2 or some times i use them together.
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MR Foxx74 said:
I would like a DSLR with a dedicated macro then shouldn't have that CA problem, or is there some thing i can do to minimise it
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Dave, you already know about the issue of chromatic aberration with your close-up filters, so please forgive me if you know all this already, but even if you do it may help some other readers.

You are (I believe) using close-up filters, which often come in sets of +1, +2, +4 and +10 diopters. The higher the number of diopters, the closer you can get to the subject and the more magnification you get.

Close-up filters are made of a single piece of glass, and that is why they suffer from chromatic aberration. The chromatic aberration gets worse if you use two (or more) close-up filters together.

There are several ways you can get better image quality. One is to get a dSLR, or a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC), and use a prime macro lens. Another is to get a dSLR or MILC camera and use an ordinary lens but mount it backwards using a "reversing ring". Yet another is to use achromats.

You use achromats in the same way as close-up filters. However, achromats are made of two or more pieces of glass which reduce the amount of chromatic aberration. The thread Bryn linked to is telling the (ongoing) story of my experiences with a dSLR and macro lenses after having used achromats on bridge and micro-four thirds cameras for seven years.

Everyone has their own preferences as to kit and methods when doing close-ups/macros, so I wouldn't want to recommend any particular approach. What works nicely for one person can be no use at all to someone else. I would do plenty of research and ask lots of questions before parting with too much money. (I recently spent loads of money on kit it turned out didn't suit me; luckily I was able to get most of it back, but that depends on where you buy stuff from of course, which is another thing to think about before spending a lot on new gear.)
 
Thanks for the info helpful. I have not heard about achromat lens before and now i checked them out etc thinking about purchasing one or two.

also what is your thoughts on this macro lens (Raynox DCR-250 Macro) Attachment for around same sort of price?. is that the same problem with CA?.


Also what if i used ND filters or CPL or the UV ones or any combo of these would that help reduce CA?
 
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MR Foxx74 said:
Thanks for the info helpful. I have not heard about achromat lens before and now i checked them out etc thinking about purchasing one or two.

also what is your thoughts on this macro lens (Raynox DCR-250 Macro) Attachment for around same sort of price?. is that the same problem with CA?.
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No problem with CA that I have come across with any of the achromats I use - the Raynox 150, Raynox 250, Raynox MSN-202 and Canon 500D. I assume the same is true of the Canon 250D. I have tried a Marumi (+4) close-up lens and I think I did see a little CA, but nothing like what you get with close-up filters (and it didn't seem to be quite as sharp as the similarly powered Raynox 150).

You have a +2 and +4 filter so you know what magnification they give you. The Canon 500D is +2 diopters. The Raynox 150 is +4.8 diopters. The Raynox 250 is +8 diopters. It might be more powerful than you want at this stage, and it is more difficult to use than the less powerful achromats.

MR Foxx74 said:
Also what if i used ND filters or CPL or the UV ones or any combo of these would that help reduce CA?
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Unfortunately, I don't think so.
 
Great stuff been great help and good advice. Currently looking at the Raynox and the canon 500d, so the Raynox is ok for CA which is what im thinking of getting at the moment.
By the way if it helps, im using a Canon sx40 which i do enjoy using.
 
MR Foxx74 said:
By the way if it helps, im using a Canon sx40 which i do enjoy using.
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Ah, I started out with an S3is seven years ago and used that for a couple of years, and then used an SX10is for a couple of years. To give you an idea of what you might expect with your SX40 (given practice and some post processing) here are some examples using the Canon 500D, Raynox 150 and Raynox 250 on the S3 and SX10. (I don't recall which achromat was used for which photo.)

(There are 1100 pixel high versions if you click through to flickr.)

SX10is











S3is







 
WOW i like your photos you taken, pretty good and with the same sort (kinda) of camera im using too. Now im deciding on which lens to get and try out out of the Canon 500D, or Raynox 150 poss even get both.
Also there is another make which Polaroid (Polaroid 500D Close Up Lens ) do same sort lens so that is also a considerations and little cheaper, but im considering the Canon and Raynox.
 
MR Foxx74 said:
WOW i like your photos you taken, pretty good
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Thanks.

MR Foxx74 said:
and with the same sort (kinda) of camera im using too.
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Very similar indeed - they are earlier versions of your camera, using technology three and five years older than in the SX40, so the SX40 should be better.

MR Foxx74 said:
Now im deciding on which lens to get and try out out of the Canon 500D, or Raynox 150 poss even get both.
Also there is another make which Polaroid (Polaroid 500D Close Up Lens ) do same sort lens so that is also a considerations and little cheaper, but im considering the Canon and Raynox.
Click to expand...

The Polaroid 500D is the same strength as the Canon 500D and costs much less than the Canon 500D. However, I don't know how the quality of the Polaroid 500D compares to the Canon 500D.
 
GardenersHelper said:
Thanks.



Very similar indeed - they are earlier versions of your camera, using technology three and five years older than in the SX40, so the SX40 should be better.




The Polaroid 500D is the same strength as the Canon 500D and costs much less than the Canon 500D. However, I don't know how the quality of the Polaroid 500D compares to the Canon 500D.
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Yeah i agree before i rush off and buy another camera haha.

Well i could consider get one and let you know how it is. The filter lens already got from Polaroid is fine just the CA problem.

How have you got your photosso sharp though or is that the quality of the lens and your skill.?
 
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MR Foxx74 said:
How have you got your photosso sharp though or is that the quality of the lens and your skill.?
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That is a very interesting question, and to be honest I don't know the answer to it; it's been puzzling me and I think some other people too for a while now. On the face of it I shouldn't be getting particularly sharp images. Most of the time until recently, and some of the time still, I use a bridge camera. This has a tiny sensor (the same size as the sensor in a point and shoot), and that tiny sensor is not capable of capturing as much detail or the range of brightness that a camera with a larger sensor can, like a dSLR. Bridge cameras also have a general purpose lens which goes from quite wide angle to quite a lot of telephoto. These sort of lenses are inevitably less sharp than special purpose non-zoom (prime) lenses made especially for macro work. I then put a cheap piece of glass in front of this not very sharp lens, which can only make it even less sharp.

I then do some other things that make the situation even worse. It is quite widely known that if you use small apertures you lose sharpness. Well, in order to get the most depth of field I can, I often use the smallest possible apertures, and that means I lose a lot of sharpness. For example, all eight of the examples posted above used the smallest possible aperture on my bridge cameras, f/8. This produces depth of field which is roughly the same as using f/22 on a dSLR, and it means it loses about as much sharpness as using f/22 does on a dSLR.

I also use autofocus almost all the time, which many people say you can't focus as accurately as with manual focus, and so you lose sharpness. I use slow exposures compared to most people - for example as slow as 1/5 second sometimes when photographing moving snails in poor light, and that obviously means not very sharp images. And I shoot in a breeze a lot of the time (I live in a windy location); more loss of sharpness. And I use natural light a lot of the time, for example all eight of the examples I posted above used natural light, and you can't reveal the amount of detail and get the sharpness with natural light that you can when using flash.

So what on earth is going on? Like I said, I don't really know, but I suspect there are several things at work here. One is the business of using small apertures. This does lose sharpness, but it also increases the depth of field, a lot, and having a wider depth of field can make a photo appear to be sharper.

Another factor is the size of my photos. You never see the full size originals of my photos - they quite often look quite nasty if you take a close look at them. I produce photos 1100 pixels high for viewing on screen. I don't often print my photos, but if I do I almost always use quite a small size, A4, or, very rarely, 16 x12 inches.

I think that autofocus can be better than a lot of people think, although this depends on what camera/lens you are using.

Sharpening has to do with making edges sharp, but I work quite carefully in post processing to adjust the distribution of light in my images to make them as clear as I can, and this may make them look sharper too.

I take lots of pictures of the same scene and go through them all afterwards and picks out the best of them. even when taking the same photo with the same settings and technique, the sharpness from image to image can vary a lot. For the most part I only use the sharpest ones I come across and throw out the rest.

And I don't crop much.

And finally, there is the issue of "How sharp is sharp enough?". I think what this boils down to is that my images may not actually be particularly sharp if you take a close look at them before any processing is done on them, but for the size I produce them, and the post processing I do on them, they may be sharp enough, and clear enough, and with enough DOF, to look ok, sometimes with compositions and colours that might take your mind off the sharpness a bit as well.
 
WOW didnt expect that much, i cant write that much like you have done but thanks loads, I really appreciate the info and advice you given me.

Like i said im still deciding on the Polaroid, Canon or the Raynox lens cant decide. Ill probably getting two or ones of each haha but rather just get the one set.
 
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