Macro/ring flash results

Trev4 · 23 Jul 2009

After all the good advice offered here, and finally getting my flash, I just had to try it. Weather has limited what I can do outdoors today, but I managed a few before the heavens opened again. Here's some taken this morning between showers, would love to hear what your thoughts are.
I will say they are not good as I hoped for, but haven't had the chance to experiment too much with settings etc.

1) f8 1/250 ISO 100

2) f11 1/250 ISO 100

3) f11 1/250 SIO 100

4) f11 1/250 ISO 100

A limited choice of subject today but it gave a chance to try things out.
Thanks for looking.

C & C welcomed.
Trev

HoppyUK · 24 Jul 2009

Well done Trev

They are a pretty good start. Main problem is focus - you haven't quite nailed it in the right place with any of them.

Maybe all you need is a bit more depth of field, and you still have some usable f/number range to get it, eg f/16, but with DoF at only 2mm or so, the slightest movement between focusing and shooting results in the plane shifting off target. The sharpness is there, just not in quite the right place.

Number 2 is strange. It looks like a bigger enlargement and over-processed/over-sharpened.

Trev4 · 24 Jul 2009

HoppyUK said:
Well done Trev They are a pretty good start. Main problem is focus - you haven't quite nailed it in the right place with any of them.

Maybe all you need is a bit more depth of field, and you still have some usable f/number range to get it, eg f/16, but with DoF at only 2mm or so, the slightest movement between focusing and shooting results in the plane shifting off target. The sharpness is there, just not in quite the right place.

Number 2 is strange. It looks like a bigger enlargement and over-processed/over-sharpened.

Thanks HoppyUK, thats useful. I knew there was something wrong with number 2 but wasnt sure what, the more I tried to get it right the worse I made it. Even starting from scratch a few times didnt help, I ended up much the same each time, its one for the bin I think.
I'll give it a try with different f numbers now, I didnt want to use a much slower shutter speed because of the movement of the bee, so would you think it better to increase the ISO, use a smaller aperture and keep the speed the same, something like f16, 1/250, ISO 200. I'll have a play anyway and see how it goes.
Thanks again for your time and comments

Trev

HoppyUK · 24 Jul 2009

Trev4 said:
Thanks HoppyUK, that’s useful. I knew there was something wrong with number 2 but wasn’t sure what, the more I tried to get it right the worse I made it. Even starting from scratch a few times didn’t help, I ended up much the same each time, its one for the bin I think.
I'll give it a try with different f numbers now, I didn’t want to use a much slower shutter speed because of the movement of the bee, so would you think it better to increase the ISO, use a smaller aperture and keep the speed the same, something like f16, 1/250, ISO 200. I'll have a play anyway and see how it goes.
Thanks again for your time and comments
Trev

You're welcome Trev. But I'm a bit confused by your comments.

You're using flash, and that will moderate it's output according to f/number automatically. So set f/16 or whatever and fire away. Of course, it will run out of power eventually if you want a very high f/number at greater distance, but that isn't the case here. Use f/22 if you have to, but diffraction starts to eat away at ultimate sharpness - it can be just detectable past about f/11, and by f/32 it is bad. Suck it and see.

Your effective shutter speed is the flash duration, not the actual shutter speed of the camera. (Check out how focal plane shutters work on Wiki or somewhere.) I don't know the details of your Marumi, but the flash duration will not be longer than about 1/1000sec, and quite likely 1/10,000 sec or even less. That is how it varies the power output.

If you really max out the flash and get it to fire at full power and 1/1000sec duration, you can still get camera shake at high magnification ratios so a steady hand is still needed, but subject movement shouldn't be a problem.

If you are using AF, I would use manual focus. Set the distance you want and leave it there, concentrate on holding the camera steady, and focus by rocking very gently back and forth as you frame the image. Really close macro photography such as you are doing is a very delicate skill. I never get much closer than butterflies - much easier

Edit: here's a bit about focal plane shutters, from the tutorials section. See post #12 http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=99841#up_understandshutter

Trev4 · 24 Jul 2009

HoppyUK said:
You're welcome Trev. But I'm a bit confused by your comments.

Edit: here's a bit about focal plane shutters, from the tutorials section. See post #12 http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=99841#up_understandshutter

Thats a great help, I realise now that my theory is all wrong regarding flash, showing my ignorance here :thinking:

I've quickly looked at the link and its very informative, and will take a longer look and absorb it a little later today when I finish work. I did try a few shots today using the advice you gave but I am not happy enough with the results to post them, I need to work on the technique a lot more, especially manual focusing, I'm also going to pick an easier target to practice on and will post the result.
Thanks again Hoppy, its appreciated.

Trev

Trev4 · 26 Jul 2009

Finally I got to do some more shots, but with a static subject, one that didn’t fly away before I could even focus :bang:
These are of the Ragwort flower, only small at approx 20mm diameter. I tried to increase the vibrance but lost some detail then, so decided to leave them as is except for a small increase in contrast and some sharpening.
There is a small crop, maybe 10%/15% on both.
I don’t feel its the best flower to have used, and I am not too happy with the results especially as far as sharpness or clarity is concerned.

1) 1/250 f13 ISO 100 I selected f13 on this because it just puts the far and near ends of the petals out of focus showing the depth of field.

2) 1/250 f11 ISO 100 f11 allowed me to keep the flower in focus and to give the busy BG varying degrees of out of focus.

Any thoughts would be appreciated please.
Thanks for looking

Trev

HoppyUK · 26 Jul 2009

The second pic isn't opening for me, but based on the first one, nothing wrong there that can't be fixed with a bit of sharpening and brightening in post (as is almost always the case - what JPEG presets are you using?).

You still need more depth of field IMHO, there is only 2-3mm of sharp focus - the centre of the flower is not properly sharp. Depth of field runs square to the lens and if you project that plane forward you can see it is focusing across and through the bud at an angle.

Trev4 · 26 Jul 2009

HoppyUK said:
The second pic isn't opening for me, but based on the first one, nothing wrong there that can't be fixed with a bit of sharpening and brightening in post (as is almost always the case - what JPEG presets are you using?).

You still need more depth of field IMHO, there is only 2-3mm of sharp focus - the centre of the flower is not properly sharp. Depth of field runs square to the lens and if you project that plane forward you can see it is focusing across and through the bud at an angle.

They are both opening here, but I have re-linked the second one just in case, hope it opens for you now.
With JPEG I use 'baseline standard' with a quality of 12
I did a series of shots from f2.8 to f32 with the camera on a tripod so that they were all identical. At f22 there was a big drop off in brightness that was hard to correct in PS, which is why I used f13 and f11. I also used f13 to show the depth of field working when the flower was taken from the side, sort of helped me to get the feel of the lens.
I have used the unsharp mask but am always worried about using it too much and over processing, I did try but backed off to these results when I thought I had gone too far. I'll try again and see if I can get it right. I only use the unsharp mask in Elements 7 though, would you recommend any other way to increase the sharpness?
I will say that there is a slight difference in the pictures from when I finished them on my monitor, to uploading them to Flickr (which is where they seem to deteriorate a bit), and then to TP, but the TP picture is much the same as Flickr so no loss there.
I did try to increase the brightness, and increase the saturation, but could see a loss of detail so kept the increase fairly small.
Its a slow learning curve isnt it, 2 steps forward and 3 back sometimes lol, but I like to think there is a slow improvement, and the instruction link you sent was a big help in understanding the nuts and bolts of the mechanics.
Thanks again for your time, its appreciated

Trev

HoppyUK · 26 Jul 2009

Trev, with the drop in brightness you describe, I wonder if the flash is running out of power? In which case, push the ISO up to 400 and you'll get two more stops of f/number to play with.

I'm not sure which processing parameters you're using, but I would try setting +3 for Sharpness and zero for Contrast, Saturation and Color Tone. Maybe +1 on each of Saturation and Contrast if you want a bit more punch. Use that as a starting point, then adjust to taste later.

This will process your JPEG, and the settings will also be tagged to the Raw file as your starting point in post processing. They are not embedded, only tagged, so you can change or delete them as you like, but they are a good starting point. Frankly, I almost always use the JPEG file just as it comes out, and very rarely feel the need to tweak the Raw any further, but that's because I've fiddled around with the JPEG settings to get it how I want straight out of the box.

As a basis for experimentation, and for fine tuning later, I would use them and not bother with the Raw at this stage, until you've got the other basics sorted.

I hope this makes sense. I use Canon DPP for post processing.