First macro post

Inglesias

Inglesias

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69
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all,

Got my first DSLR in December and added a Raynox a few weeks back. Been enjoying the macro work and thought i would share a few shots taken over the last few days:

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Thanks for looking.
 
Hi, welcome to TP.

A decent set of shots for your first post. Well done.

Lighting is a little harsh and the images look a tad over-sharp but minor points aside, they're an excellent entry set.

Looking forward to seeing more.
 
Welcome to TP. I agree with Ian, great start and I'll look forward to seeing you progress on here.
 
Thanks very much for the feedback.

These all use natural light, I have found that the on camera flash can cause shadows, an external flash and diffuser might be in order to improve the light.
 
May I ask how you are achieving those shots with the raynox please? I have got a raynox 250 and find focusing handheld and keeping subjects in focus is next to impossible.
 
Hi Inglesias. I would agree that external and heavily diffused flash is a must. This would certainly soften the light and reduce shadows. You could also try shooting at ISO 200 to bring it a bit more background light.
 
The raynox takes a little practice, I shot these at 400 iso to ensure a fast shutter and used an aperture of around f11 to maintain depth of field as far as possible.

I shoot on continuous and take as many shots as I can as some are inevitably blurry hand held.

The raynox is brilliant for the price.
 
Inglesias said:
The raynox takes a little practice, I shot these at 400 iso to ensure a fast shutter and used an aperture of around f11 to maintain depth of field as far as possible.

I shoot on continuous and take as many shots as I can as some are inevitably blurry hand held.

The raynox is brilliant for the price.
Click to expand...
Great shots Paul and thanks for the info.:clap:
 
Great start good composition in the second one
The light is a bit bright but that can't be helped on sunny days:)
 
IanClark said:
Hi Inglesias. I would agree that external and heavily diffused flash is a must. This would certainly soften the light and reduce shadows. You could also try shooting at ISO 200 to bring it a bit more background light.
Click to expand...

Well done. You have made a good start. The Raynox 250 (assuming you are using that rather than the 150) can be difficult to handle, especially at first. Just getting a decently sharp image can be tricky at the outset, and you have done fine with that.

I think it is well worth paying close attention to what Ian says here. (Have a look at his macro images, through the link in his sig and I think you'll see why I say that. :) ) It may be counter-intuitive (it certainly was to me), but on a bright day throwing even more light at the scene (using flash) can actually soften the harsh contrast, make colours look better and make an image look more natural. And I'm not talking about a minor, marginal effect; it can make a huge difference.

Diffusion is often very important when using flash for macros. Like many others I use natural light or flash, or both, depending on the circumstances. When using flash, again like many other people, I use an external flash with home made diffusion. You can of course get specialised macro flash units, but the better ones are rather expensive. In this case though, when using flash to moderate very bright natural light, you don't always need diffusion. I have sometimes just raised the on board flash and used that and it has worked fine (and sometimes it didn't).

Sometimes using flash in bright sunlight can make a success of an otherwise unworkable shot. Here is an example. It was a very bright, sunny day. The spider was deep in shadow. Without using flash, if I exposed for the spider the background was blown out. If I exposed so the background was ok, the spider was unrecoverably dark. With flash, I could get the spider, the upper side of the leaf that was in sunshine, and the background, all reasonably exposed, as well as still being able to see the shadow cast by the leaf that the spider was hanging from.


0440 080 2012_07_25 P1530482 PS1 ShadPSS1 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Ian's point about upping the ISO may take a bit of explaining. The effect of flash light falls off very rapidly with distance, so it is very easy to get areas which are very dark, or even completely black. Some people don't mind this, but others prefer to avoid that where possible. To do this you need to get enough light from the areas that aren't illuminated by the flash to give them a bit of texture and colour. (You don't necessarily need a lot - just taking the edge off of the extreme darkness with a hint of colour/texture can stop a dark area "shouting" at your eyes.)

There are several ways of doing this. One is to up the ISO. Suppose you are using an exposure of 1/60 second with the flash. If you use ISO 200 rather than ISO 100 the TTL metering will ensure that the subject gets properly exposed by halving the amount of light it throws out, but you will get twice as much light from the areas that the flash doesn't reach. In these circumstances I often use ISO 800, which gives me eight times as much light from those areas. As a matter of interest the spider shot above used ISO 800 (and used either the Raynox 250 or the 150).

Another thing you can do is to use a slower shutter speed. Suppose you use 1/30 second rather than 1/60 second. You will get twice as much light from the naturally illuminated areas. And four times as much if you use 1/15 second. As to how slow you can go without the subject losing too much sharpness is a matter for experimentation. But FWIW I sometimes use even slower shutter speeds than this when using flash.

You can combine these two approaches. If you used 1/15 second and ISO 800 you would get 32 times as much light from the dark areas compared to ISO 100 with 1/60 second.

Another approach is to use a second flash to throw some light on to/in to the background. It isn't a technique I have ever used, but there are a few people who do this.
 
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Wow, some very useful information, thanks Nick!

I will give the higher iso a go to see what effect it has, it hadn't crossed my mind that this might reduce the harshness or contrast of the image- sounds like a trick that could work well with a variety of styles not just macro. I have always gone down the route of using the lowest possible iso to keep the noise down and shutter speed fast enough but I will certainly be experimenting with increasing further.

I am looking to get an external flash at some point this year predominantly for macro although by the sound of it I should not rule out the on board- I have tried this once or twice but suffered with shadows as I can't control it's position but again something I will try again thanks to this advice.

Thanks Nick and everyone else for the pointers and feedback.
 
Inglesias said:
I will give the higher iso a go to see what effect it has, it hadn't crossed my mind that this might reduce the harshness or contrast of the image- sounds like a trick that could work well with a variety of styles not just macro.
Click to expand...

Maybe this is obvious already, but just to be clear, I was thinking of flash for reducing harshness/contrast on the subject and its immediate surroundings when shooting in bright sunlight. Upping the ISO (and/or dropping the shutter speed), when used with flash, can help bring up dark backgrounds, in any ambient lighting, sunny or not. I suppose you could regard this as decreasing the overall contrast of the image, although to be honest I hadn't thought of it that way.

Inglesias said:
I have always gone down the route of using the lowest possible iso to keep [...] shutter speed fast enough but I will certainly be experimenting with increasing further.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this was a typo? Lower ISOs mean slower shutter speeds. You have to raise the ISO (or provide more light, or use a larger aperture, or under-expose) to get a faster shutter speed.

Inglesias said:
I am looking to get an external flash at some point this year predominantly for macro although by the sound of it I should not rule out the on board- I have tried this once or twice but suffered with shadows as I can't control it's position but again something I will try again thanks to this advice.
Click to expand...

Have a look at the work of Mark Berkery. He explains his technique in this long post. He uses onboard flash with a home made diffuser referred to as a "snoot", and I think you'll agree he gets terrific results.

Inglesias said:
Thanks Nick and everyone else for the pointers and feedback.
Click to expand...

It's a pleasure to try to help others ease themselves into the fascinating world of macros/close-ups. I suppose it is the same in any area of photography, but it is certainly the case with macros/closeups that there are a number of technicalities (often inter-related technicalities) you may need to get your head around in order to get really good results, but I think it is well worth the effort. :)

Nick

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
 
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Really interesting about using flash in bright light to soften the light
Ive not heard of that before but it absolutely makes sense
Thanks very much everyone I'm so glad I checked this thread out:)
I normally don't shoot in very bright conditions as I don't like the harsh lighting will definitely be trying out flash when the season starts
 
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GardenersHelper said:
Maybe this is obvious already, but just to be clear, I was thinking of flash for reducing harshness/contrast on the subject and its immediate surroundings when shooting in bright sunlight. Upping the ISO (and/or dropping the shutter speed), when used with flash, can help bring up dark backgrounds, in any ambient lighting, sunny or not. I suppose you could regard this as decreasing the overall contrast of the image, although to be honest I hadn't thought of it that way.



Perhaps this was a typo? Lower ISOs mean slower shutter speeds. You have to raise the ISO (or provide more light, or use a larger aperture, or under-expose) to get a faster shutter speed.



Have a look at the work of Mark Berkery. He explains his technique in this long post. He uses onboard flash with a home made diffuser referred to as a "snoot", and I think you'll agree he gets terrific results.



It's a pleasure to try to help others ease themselves into the fascinating world of macros/close-ups. I suppose it is the same in any area of photography, but it is certainly the case with macros/closeups that there are a number of technicalities (often inter-related technicalities) you may need to get your head around in order to get really good results, but I think it is well worth the effort. :)

Nick

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
Click to expand...
Hi Nick, thanks for the clarification.

On the iso front, what I was trying to explain quite badly is that I keep the iso as low as possible and only increase it sufficient to ensure the shutter speed is fast enough when shooting hand held but hadn't thought to use this with flash to bring out the background - it's counter intuitive but makes sense through your explanation and will hopefully help me improve which is great.

I shall be following you and Ian on flickr!

Thanks.
 
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