Preparing for extreme macro........

Thanks for that Chris. A very helpful and encouraging post. I really appreciate it. I fully envisage that I will have to increase my kit I have as time goes on, but that will be after the bank balance has improved.

I've also heard of the clamps to keep things steady - something for the future maybe - we'll see.

When you say 'in vivo' - does that mean 'in situ'? Can you explain what you mean please? Again, can you explain what you mean by craftily carved metal. please?
 
Jeff Watson said:
There is a quotable quote that I have learned to stick by and that is, “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

I'll leave it at that.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:It's not difficult for folk to work out who's an idiot.
 
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WOW! I never thought so many cared so much about insects ... betting every one of us squishes select bugs here and there - "Spider, hmm, you can live ... fly/wasp!! Kill it with fire!!" :D

I do get why people are freaked about killing just to take pics of, I'm not a fan of images of dead bugs either way, found or killed ... I much prefer to feel a bit of life about it. It can be eerie, even though it's 'just a bug' - if you know it's dead. But I'm not going to lecture OP because of my preference. I don't think it's really anyone's place, he asked for technical advice, not moral.

I would say, get out and at least try shooting some live subjects, it is way more satisfying - gets you out and about and helps improve your technique a lot more than using stationary subjects, whatever they may be.

I've dabbled here and there in macro, I wouldn't say I was very good at it, but I enjoyed the times I hit the garden or local park or whatever, in search of creepy crawlies in their natural environment. And it is immensely satisfying when you nail a shot! [rather than the bug :D ] The first few times I got in real close using macro tubes, I remember finding manual focus at such magnification to be extremely difficult. I over came the shakiness by holding my breath while focusing and shooting ,and often used the to-and-fro motion to manually focus rather than the focus rings. It works better for me at least. I made a flash/extender/soft-box from cardboard, lined with foil, and a dried out baby wipe held over the end by one of the kid's hair bobbins :D Just look up DIY macro, and you'll find all sorts like that. It never has to cost much money.

Any old flash unit will do the trick. I used to use a yongnuo 560, which was about €70 at the time [I still use this as a second flash today, bought a Nikon flash later] , some cheap extension rings I got on ebay for €10 and like I say, the soft box I made myself out of bits and bobs around the house - free! I also very rarely used a tripod. Though it can help a lot - not much use for chasing busy bees though! My mission when weather gets better is to finally capture a solid bee in flight shot! I have a few, but was never happy with them.

Good luck anyway, your conscience is your own, but at least consider exploring more natural methods.
 
chris malcolm said:
Here's another OAP who started exploring macro last year. In my quest for things that would stay still while I experimented with novel technical details I settled on coins :) For long distance macro (a technical term for more than an inch away from the lens :) ) I settled on a pile of cheap non-electronic extension tubes. I have a cheap completely manual 85mm lens which means it has an aperture ring for controlling the iris. I also have a few completely manual primes from my ancient film days, the kind you can pick up for few pounds at a car boot sale. A 19mm reversed onto the camera body with a reversing adapter gives me about 3:1 macro.

So far so cheap. The next problem was focusing. The slightest touch knocked off the razor thin focus, and my reversed lenses had almost no natural focus adjustment. So I splashed out and got a focussing rail. That turns out to have another unexpected use so in a sense it wasn't so expensive. For the upcoming eclipse I really need a long lens support which lets me mount a long lensed camera at its centre of gravity. A little bit of Blue Peter bodgery turns the macro focusing rail into a long lens support!

I rather like taking macro shots in vivo of small flowers and the sexual organs of large flowers, both of which sometimes have tiny bugs on them. But the slightest breeze makes these things nod about, which makes focus impossible. So I splashed out again and bought a snaky flower clamp which lets me hold a nodding flower steady. One end of the snake clampos the flower stalk gently. The other end clamps to a tripod leg. It's often a struggle getting light to something tiny you're shading with a close lens so I got a cheap LED ring flash to help with that. For very close work it needs the addition of a ring of kitchen foil to reflect the mostly toward light sideways into the centre of the ring.

For flower work I often want to take some macro shots and some simply ordinary close shots, which a dedicated macro set up with tubes or reversing rings won't do. It got very annoying changing lenses all the time. I stretched my budget and bought a cheap second hand 30mm macro. The short focal length helps a bit with depth of focus.

So my macro expenditure so far has been non-electronic extension tubes, a reversed lens mounting ring, a focussing rail, a flower clamp, a second hand 30mm macro lens, and an LED ring "flash". Mostly what I've bought has been bits of craftily carved metal, the kind of things you used to be able to pick up cheaply in enthusiast camera hardware stores. Those no longer exist. In fact I don't think anyone in the UK makes that kind of thing any more. But if you're prepared to wait for the often ingeniously free post you can get craftily carved metal very cheaply from Hong Kong. Except these days it's not carved by a craftsman, but by programmable machine tools and robots.
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Good post (y)

For extreme macro on a budget, this is the way to go - starting with the reversed lens and cheap bits from China. Then lots of time and patience and skill.
 
Following Chris's post, I've been playing around with the the extension tubes which I attached to my kit lens. No flash, as it hasn't arrived yet. This was taken at 78 mm

A stack of 10 shots of a twenty pence piece set at about a 30 degree angle.

Found the focusing very sensitive.


View attachment 31760
 
Cagey75 said:
WOW! I never thought so many cared so much about insects ... betting every one of us squishes select bugs here and there - "Spider, hmm, you can live ... fly/wasp!! Kill it with fire!!" :D


My mission when weather gets better is to finally capture a solid bee in flight shot! I have a few, but was never happy with them.

Good luck anyway, your conscience is your own, but at least consider exploring more natural methods.
Click to expand...

I focused on the flower using a Tamron 90-300 mm lens with a macro facility, which is what the lens was set to, and waited for an obliging bee to fly into frame.

View attachment 31765
 
Jeff, as an aside, do you have a calibrated monitor? I'm only asking (hope you don't mind) as the last 2 pics seem way over saturated.
 
I calibrated my monitor some six months ago, so I don't know if its drifted off since then. I'll go back and check.

Edited to say: Yup! Way out.
 
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Jeff Watson said:
Thanks for that Chris. A very helpful and encouraging post. I really appreciate it. I fully envisage that I will have to increase my kit I have as time goes on, but that will be after the bank balance has improved.

I've also heard of the clamps to keep things steady - something for the future maybe - we'll see.

When you say 'in vivo' - does that mean 'in situ'? Can you explain what you mean please? Again, can you explain what you mean by craftily carved metal. please?
Click to expand...

Yes, by in vivo (in life, i.e. not dead) I did mean in situ, in its natural surroundings. Craftily carved metal was hopefully intended as a portmanteau phrase for the sort of metal gadgetry that an engineer with a lathe etc. in his shed could make, such as lens reversing rings or focusing rails. These days of course it should include the sort of plastic and electronic gadgetry a hobbyist could make, such as radio shutter triggers and intervalometers.
 
chris malcolm said:
Yes, by in vivo (in life, i.e. not dead) I did mean in situ, in its natural surroundings. Craftily carved metal was hopefully intended as a portmanteau phrase for the sort of metal gadgetry that an engineer with a lathe etc. in his shed could make, such as lens reversing rings or focusing rails. These days of course it should include the sort of plastic and electronic gadgetry a hobbyist could make, such as radio shutter triggers and intervalometers.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up.
 
A good macro photographer will be able to shoot a bee in flight no problems.

Hard to do if you kill it first.
 
Cagey75 said:
WOW! I never thought so many cared so much about insects ... betting every one of us squishes select bugs here and there - "Spider, hmm, you can live ... fly/wasp!! Kill it with fire!!" :D

I do get why people are freaked about killing just to take pics of, I'm not a fan of images of dead bugs either way, found or killed ... I much prefer to feel a bit of life about it. It can be eerie, even though it's 'just a bug' - if you know it's dead. But I'm not going to lecture OP because of my preference. I don't think it's really anyone's place, he asked for technical advice, not moral.

I would say, get out and at least try shooting some live subjects, it is way more satisfying - gets you out and about and helps improve your technique a lot more than using stationary subjects, whatever they may be.

I've dabbled here and there in macro, I wouldn't say I was very good at it, but I enjoyed the times I hit the garden or local park or whatever, in search of creepy crawlies in their natural environment. And it is immensely satisfying when you nail a shot! [rather than the bug :D ] The first few times I got in real close using macro tubes, I remember finding manual focus at such magnification to be extremely difficult. I over came the shakiness by holding my breath while focusing and shooting ,and often used the to-and-fro motion to manually focus rather than the focus rings. It works better for me at least. I made a flash/extender/soft-box from cardboard, lined with foil, and a dried out baby wipe held over the end by one of the kid's hair bobbins :D Just look up DIY macro, and you'll find all sorts like that. It never has to cost much money.

Any old flash unit will do the trick. I used to use a yongnuo 560, which was about €70 at the time [I still use this as a second flash today, bought a Nikon flash later] , some cheap extension rings I got on ebay for €10 and like I say, the soft box I made myself out of bits and bobs around the house - free! I also very rarely used a tripod. Though it can help a lot - not much use for chasing busy bees though! My mission when weather gets better is to finally capture a solid bee in flight shot! I have a few, but was never happy with them.

Good luck anyway, your conscience is your own, but at least consider exploring more natural methods.
Click to expand...
I can safely say that I don't (deliberately) kill anything.
 
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odd jim said:
I can safely say that I don't (deliberately) kill anything.
Click to expand...

Good for you, why would it matter to me either way? That was more my point.

I've shot a few bees in flight, they just didn't please ME. others thought they were good shots, I wasn't happy enough. I've shot plenty of bees in general along the way, I just wouldn't say I was a great macro shooter, simply because I haven't put enough time into it. I plan to improve on that this year.
 
I thought your point was that we all do it, from time to time, as you did state "betting every one of us squishes select bugs here and there.."

Thats the only reason I brought it up.
 
I imagine most people have. I've swatted plenty of flies or wasps ... I don't think about it. I wouldn't go taking macros of their corpses ... but more so because I prefer to shoot them when alive, in their habitat, not mine!
 
...and thats what I enjoy about bug macro, going into their world (almost!) and showing them, up close, in their environment. Aside from the moral aspect of killing anything for photography, if you're killing them, and placing them on cardboard with pins you're taking all that away. Therefore they might as well stick to photographing inanimate things like coins, bubbles or whatever else and just leave the living creatures be!
 
Jeff Watson said:
Following Chris's post, I've been playing around with the the extension tubes which I attached to my kit lens. No flash, as it hasn't arrived yet. This was taken at 78 mm

A stack of 10 shots of a twenty pence piece set at about a 30 degree angle.

Found the focusing very sensitive.


View attachment 31760
Click to expand...
I think you've got a good result here, bit over done on the colour perhaps (as mentioned), but I think the stack came out well, very high magnification, lots of detail. There are a few areas that look like OOF frames (bottom right corner and just around the "I"), but all in all a very good effort especially for a first try.

You can see some of the harsh highlights around the edges of the various peaks and depressions, but they look quite normal on a coin. On other subject matters they may detract more so this is where your fun and games begin with finding the right amount of diffusion (something that will be easier when you receive your flash).
 
With regards to the actual stack, I can't see much difference. Detail looks good in both, and you can see the same areas of "blur" in both, which suggests it's the input files rather than the stacking software at fault. The most noticeable difference is with the contrast and saturation, but I imagine this is due to follow up processing on the monitor being recalibrated.

I think you have a pretty simple subject to stack with here, so it's difficult to analyse to any great extent (although great to help get to grips with the process and understand how it all works). Have a look on your window sills (hopefully you don't keep them too clean) and see if you can find any dead bugs. The real test of the stacking software is how they handle very fine detail (insect hairs for example) and that will help your decide on which product will meet your requirements.
 
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