Hello from a Newbie

4GoodnessCake

Hi there,

On impulse I bought myself a macro lens for my birthday. I've had it less than a week and I am hooked big time! I am starting to look at the world in a totally new light.

I stumbled across this forum while searching for tutorials on macro shooting so I am off to read and look at everything here!

Here is my favourite shot so far. I am bug-phobic so might just stick to shooting flowers

I am VERY open to all CC/feedback. I am here to learn :help

Cheers
Kathryn

PS: My attachemnt looks a little soft on here, not sure what I am doing wrong>

paddler4

Welcome to the forum! I always like having more flower shooters on board. I do more flowers than bugs, and we are definitely outnumbered here.

If you would like C&C, it is helpful if you include more information. E.g., lens, shutter speed, aperture, and whether you used flash.

You mentioned the image looking soft. Does it look less soft in other software? There may be a problem in how you prepared it for uploading.

Apart from that, a major issue in any macro photography is getting enough depth of field. One option, if the subject is staying still enough, is stacking multiple images in software. However, I would not recommend that for a beginner. Instead, close the aperture down. Try different apertures and compare the results to see how it affects depth of field. There is a 'sweet spot' beyond which closing the aperture down (larger f-stop number, greater depth of field) will cause some softness because of diffraction. Depending on the equipment, that may be in the range of f/8 to f/11. However, the effects are small compared to the difference in depth of field, and with flowers, the tradeoff is often worth it. I'll post a couple below to show what I mean.

Shot with an old XTi and an EF-S 60mm macro lens. Shot at 2 seconds (on a tripod on my kitchen table) at f/20. f/20 is way past the sweet spot, but it worked fine:




Same equipment, shot at f/32!. At f/32, there is really noticeable softening from diffraction, but with this image, it was fine. Normally, I would recommend not going past f/20 or 22.



At a distance, you can often make do with a much less narrow aperture. This was shot with a 70-200 at 170mm, f/7.1

GOLDENORFE

Welcome to the forum Kathryn , agree not enough flowers are photographed, very difficult to shoot well .

Good shot, like composition . Macro does become addictive !
I think Softness in flower shots is ok, some of the best I have seen are shot at f2.8 and look soft and dreamy ! Lol

DeVil

Beautiful images!