Starting in Macro - some tips please :)

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Dale_tem

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I'm just diving in to the world of Macro, I've always loved the close ups.

I've just purchased a set of Polaroid extension tubes for my Nikon D3100 (allows autofocus). They will arrive next week and I can get started.

I've been looking at the photos in this section and I was wondering how far from the subject you are? I've seen pictures of people taking macro photos and they have been an inch away from the subject. How far from the subject are you with bugs etc.

I've got 3 lenses - 18mm-55mm (kit lens), 35mm f/1.8 and the 55-300mm telephoto. Which lens will I get the most out of with Macro? The extra light from the 35mm, the zoom of the 55-300 which is limited by a high minimum focal distance. or the 18-55mm?

Any help will be appreciated
 
With my 100mm canon macro it is about 2 to 5 inches away so as you can imagine it's dam hard to get close to some of the flys bugs spiders whatever but gives you a good rush if you can pull it off ..With my sigma 70 to 300 you can be good few feet away but no where near as good as a dedicated macro
 
Dale_d3100 said:
I'm just diving in to the world of Macro, I've always loved the close ups.

I've just purchased a set of Polaroid extension tubes for my Nikon D3100 (allows autofocus). They will arrive next week and I can get started.

I've been looking at the photos in this section and I was wondering how far from the subject you are? I've seen pictures of people taking macro photos and they have been an inch away from the subject. How far from the subject are you with bugs etc.

I've got 3 lenses - 18mm-55mm (kit lens), 35mm f/1.8 and the 55-300mm telephoto. Which lens will I get the most out of with Macro? The extra light from the 35mm, the zoom of the 55-300 which is limited by a high minimum focal distance. or the 18-55mm?

Any help will be appreciated
Click to expand...

I'm a newbie to macro myself so don't take this as gospel but the 35mm working distance will be way to close to get bugs, and it won't give you any extra light as you will be shooting at the opposite end of f stops, to give you as much dof as possible. (That might be for dedicated macros only) I shoot at f22 with my nikon macro lens.

You light also need to think about introducing a light source to give you a decent shutter speed
 
I've just been looking at LED ring flashes on eBay, are they any good? I have an sb400 flash I can use off camera with a cable, would that help?
 
Use the sb400... Someone showed me a link to their macro rig nd they used a sb400 with a ttl cable and it worked well. I'm on my phone at the moment so can't give you the link to the "show us your macro rig thread" but there is loads of inspiration in there... I'm tempted by a ring flash, but the cheapest of the better ones is about 120 quid, can't think of the name now... Max something
 
I'm impressed with Amazon/Realfast Projects LTD.

I ordered my Extension tube set at 21:30 on Saturday and they are already here (and thanks to amazon prime I didn't pay postage).

I'll get some photos taken tonight/tomorrow :)
 
I only got 5 min play this evening, I tried all my lenses out, the 35mm is a no go, I can get extremely close at 55mm with the 18-55mm lens and pretty close with the 55-300mm lens between 150 and 200.

I have immediately learnt how small the dof is, I didn't have a flash with me and only my gorilla pod as a tripod, but I got some pretty good results. At ISO 100 and f25 I had a shutter speed around 1 second due to the low light. I tried higher isos, but the image wasn't as sharp. I got an interesting photo of some spongy dust.

So far I've learnt low ISO, small aperture and lots of light needed or a good tripod.

I've got a few hours spare tomorrow for photography so I will see how I do.
 
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