Macro shots

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silver tortoise

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Pete
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How do you take macro shots of insects/ butterflies without a tripod,on recent walks in the country I've spotted a butterfly hovering on a plant you know you've got precisely 2 sec to take a good picture not enough time to set up your tripod.What I think is in focus shot through the viewfinder only to be disappointed with the image looks like it's blurry or only a very small part in focus and not anything like the brilliant shots other people have taken.

Can any one give me some tips,thank you.
 
silver tortoise said:
How do you take macro shots of insects/ butterflies without a tripod,on recent walks in the country I've spotted a butterfly hovering on a plant you know you've got precisely 2 sec to take a good picture not enough time to set up your tripod.What I think is in focus shot through the viewfinder only to be disappointed with the image looks like it's blurry or only a very small part in focus and not anything like the brilliant shots other people have taken.

Can any one give me some tips,thank you.
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Are you sure you're using a fast enough shutter speed?

Even on a sunny day pointing the camera down at a butterfly on a flower can result in too low a shutter speed so it might be worth checking the exif to see if this could be the problem.
 
Pop your iso up to at least 800, use aperture priority with at least f8-11 and try and get as much of the insect parallel with your sensor to maximise dof. Dof decreases greatly as you get closer to your subject so you need to do as much as you can to maximise it, or use the reduced dof creatively. Any slight movement by you or your subject will send it out of focus. There is a communal butterfly thread in the Nature section. Have a look and post a few of your shots for feedback.
 
You don't say what camera you have and what lenses.

Macro photography is a different discipline to taking ordinary photographs and demands a different way of working.

You are probably better off making a start at home and get used to the difficulties you will experience.

In my case the way I became proficient was to practice, practice and practice again - hundreds of times - and then more practice - and bin all the bad shots.

But trying to get macro or close up shots outdoors is made even more difficult by the wind etc.

But a warning - macro photography is EXTREMELY addictive as many of us can attest to!
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Light is the key to macro. Most of the best shots you see will have some sort of light/flash to both improve exposure and freeze movement. I generally hold a flashgun in one hand and remotely trigger it from my camera in the other. I can then stop down the aperture without needing too slow a shutter speed or high ISO.

A couple of examples using a handheld flash.

IMG_1469318271.634035.jpg

IMG_1469318281.072525.jpg
 
Thank you everyone for your replies I shall certainly take the info on board.I am new to photography having purchased a couple of months back a Nikon D5500 with standard 18/55 MM. lens .I posted a couple of weeks ago with members input into a suitable Macro lens,I have a 105mm Sigma f2.8 lens.I have the iso set on auto but find unlike stevelmx5 pic of the bug above,which is really clear,if I took that one half the bug would be blurred.I take the point with the use of a flash and will try that at some stage.

It's a great learning curve which I'm enjoying immensely.
 
With Macro you need to stop down a fair bit, F11-F16 say for a greater DOF, when you already needed more light - everyone has different ways of getting around that problem but for me I love my Macro Ring Flash, then it's always base ISO as well.
 
In addition to everything above, I use a monopod rather than tripod for macro work. I set it to a suitable height then am ready almost instantaneously, and as most people rock back and forth to focus for macro, the stability of a tripod over a monopod is wasted anyway.
 
At my photography class last night it would appear that for macro shots you should have a single point of focus and not multi which my camera was set on,hence the blurry out of focus shots I was taking.So hopefully a bother lesson learnt.
 
Yes, that won't help :0) You should also ideally set your lens/camera to manual focus then get it roughly in the right area then slowly rock the camera back/forwards until you get the part you want in focus. I wouldn't rely on camera autofocus for any macro shots.
 
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