Macrophotography Tips and Links 2

rutt

CMR taught me this really great trick. You can use a long tele lens (like 100-400mm) as a sort of macro lens. You get pretty large images and more DOF than a real macro. Maybe everybody knows this trick, but I didn't.

mercphoto

Tele/macro and DOF

rutt wrote:

CMR taught me this really great trick. You can use a long tele lens (like 100-400mm) as a sort of macro lens. You get pretty large images and more DOF than a real macro.

I've done that before too. Goto mercphoto.smugmug.com, search for image 0385. Its a rose I shot with a 75-300 zoom, at near full-zoom, with IS on. Lots of DOF, which really helped that photo out.

dkapp

rutt wrote:

CMR taught me this really great trick. You can use a long tele lens (like 100-400mm) as a sort of macro lens. You get pretty large images and more DOF than a real macro. Maybe everybody knows this trick, but I didn't.

I have a long zoom/macro lens. It's the Sigma 70-300 APO Super Macro II. I need to take it out of the box & try your technique

Dave

lynnma

rutt wrote:

CMR taught me this really great trick. You can use a long tele lens (like 100-400mm) as a sort of macro lens. You get pretty large images and more DOF than a real macro. Maybe everybody knows this trick, but I didn't.

Lovely back lite Rutt.. I'm gonna get out my 300 now and have a go... well, after I shoot my naked lady that is.. I spose I could attempt "backlit calender girl?):roll

rutt

lynnma wrote:

Lovely back lite Rutt.. I'm gonna get out my 300 now and have a go... well, after I shoot my naked lady that is.. I spose I could attempt "backlit calender girl?):roll

I recommend the macro telephoto technique for that as well.

mercphoto

Tele macro

rutt wrote:

I recommend the macro telephoto technique for that as well.

And feel free to post the pics for our critique too. :-D

damonff

Nice work Rutt, and I generally don't like flower shots. I want to try this technique now.

MainFragger

Ummm....

lynnma wrote:

Lovely back lite Rutt.. I'm gonna get out my 300 now and have a go... well, after I shoot my naked lady that is.. I spose I could attempt "backlit calender girl?):roll

Great! We look forward to seeing the close up telephoto shots after we see your naked lady!

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

CMR taught me this really great trick. You can use a long tele lens (like 100-400mm) as a sort of macro lens. You get pretty large images and more DOF than a real macro. Maybe everybody knows this trick, but I didn't.

Kind of like a Canon or Tamron 180 Macro or a 200 Micro-Nikkor? The macro lenses should have the same depth of field as a 180 or 200mm lenses should they not? I am not aware tha DOF is a function of anything but aperature and distance to the subject. Am I misstaken, John?

Shot with Tamron 180 Macro....



I like your new avatar!

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

I like your new avatar!

I hated the old one, but it was very easy to make and I was lazy.

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

Kind of like a Canon or Tamron 180 Macro or a 200 Micro-Nikkor? The macro lenses should have the same depth of field as a 180 or 200mm lenses should they not? I am not aware tha DOF is a function of anything but focal length and aperature. Am I misstaken, John?

I don't really know what exactly DOF means in this context. Using a (non-macro) tele lens at closest possible distance seems to get more of the flower in focus than I can get with a shorter true macro lens once I start to get really close. Of course you can just stop down, but then the exposures get long and you need a tripod and no wind or a gizmo or both, etc. CMRs idea is that you just walk around with the 100-400 and that's all you need for most things, including flowers and other things you thought might need a true macro.

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

I don't really know what exactly DOF means in this context. Using a (non-macro) tele lens at closest possible distance seems to get more of the flower in focus than I can get with a shorter true macro lens once I start to get really close. Of course you can just stop down, but then the exposures get long and you need a tripod and no wind or a gizmo or both, etc. CMRs idea is that you just walk around with the 100-400 and that's all you need for most things, including flowers and other things you thought might need a true macro.

Depth of Field - DOF - refers to how far in front of, and behind, the subject of an image will appear in sharp focus at the film plane or as stated in the Time-Life Library of Photography the extent of the scene, from near to far, that will be sharp in the picture.

The shorter the focal length the greater the apparent depth of field - so a 50mm macro seems to have more DOF than a 180 ( although the truth is that focal length has no effect on DOF IF the image size on the sensor is the same size ) - This is useful to use the longer lens to better isolate a flower against a busy background for instance. The smaller the aperature the greater the depth of field - f22 is better for depth of field than f4 - but you knew this, I know.\
The last factor that influences DOF is the distance from the subject! This is why the longer lenses seem to give more DOF - they are significantly farther from the subject. Macro lenses are designed to favor near subjects, and tend to be better corrected for flat field subjects like printed matter - they tend to be crisper in the corners at near than standard lenses too.

I think you get away with teles for flowers because the corners of the pictures have no significant image - might try using a tele for a close up of newsprint and compare it to a macro lens and see how it works out.

If you want to use a tele for closeup work, the tele really neads to wear a bifocal that is color corrected for near like thos made by Canon called the 250D and 500D. They come in 52mm, 58mm, 72mm, and 77mm screw in sizes. The 500D allows focusing to about 1/2 the near focusing distance of the native prime lens focusing distance. The Canon close up lenses can be found here http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=search&Q=&b=8&shs=&ci=158&ac=&Submit.x=14&Submit.y=13

I own and use a 58mm 250D on my G5 and on the Canon 58mm macro lenses also.

wkwork

Tight Focus
I see a lot of shots with one very small area in focus (like a flower bud or something) and everything else really soft but I don't seem to be able to get one like that myself. I take it I need a better camera and lens?

Here's my best try so far (woefully insignificant though it is):




This is more what I'm looking for though (from another thread - not my shot of course). The focus on this one seems amazing to me.

Shay Stephens

The trick here is to use a wide aperture setting (e.g f/2.0). Some other things that contribute to the effect are focal length (larger is better e.g. 200mm), distance from camer to subject (the closer the better), distance from subject to background (the farther the better), and also the size of the cameras sensor or film (the larger the better).

Many cameras have a small sensor and so these very shallow DOF shots are harder to get than with a camera that has a large sensor size (not pixels, but total area of the sensor or film).

If you can control any or all of those variables, you can get the shallowest DOF possible.

wkwork wrote:

I see a lot of shots with one very small area in focus (like a flower bud or something) and everything else really soft but I don't seem to be able to get one like that myself. I take it I need a better camera and lens?

Here's my best try so far (woefully insignificant though it is):




This is more what I'm looking for though (from another thread - not my shot of course). The focus on this one seems amazing to me.

DavidTO

Shay Stephens wrote:

The trick here is to use a wide aperture setting (e.g f/2.0). Some other things that contribute to the effect are focal length (larger is better e.g. 200mm), distance from camer to subject (the closer the better), distance from subject to background (the farther the better), and also the size of the cameras sensor or film (the larger the better).

Many cameras have a small sensor and so these very shallow DOF shots are harder to get than with a camera that has a large sensor size (not pixels, but total area of the sensor or film).

If you can control any or all of those variables, you can get the shallowest DOF possible.

All true. I find focal length to be a huge part of it. I can never get it with my kit DigiRebel lens, but the 70-200mmL has shallow depth of field ALL the time (it seems). Here's one I took yesterday with it.

wkwork

Ok here's one I tried from very close up - about 6 inches from the focal point. Still not as tight as I'd like but I'm guessing this is the best I'm going to get with my consumer grade camera.

wxwax

wkwork wrote:

I see a lot of shots with one very small area in focus (like a flower bud or something) and everything else really soft but I don't seem to be able to get one like that myself.

Some of those shots are taken with a Macro lens. Anyone care to elaborate on the distinguishing characteristics of a Macro lens?

pathfinder

wxwax wrote:

Some of those shots are taken with a Macro lens. Anyone care to elaborate on the distinguishing characteristics of a Macro lens?

A macro lens is usually thought of as a lens that allows the image at the film plane to be the same size as the realworld subject - that is called a 1 : 1 ratio. Lenses that create an image on the film plane twice as large as the subject are usually referred to as photomacrographic lenses, to distinguish them from photomicroscopic images that are shot through a microscope.

Macro lenses for 35mm SLR cameras are typically 50-60mm, 100mm or 180-200mm. The ORIGINAL macro lenses were simply standard 50mm lenses that were reversed on the camera body - that is mounted with the front of the optic facing the film plane. This allowed them to focus much closer than forward mounting. The next development was the design of formal 50mm macro lenses which were specially designed to focus sharply with very high resolution at near focal distances down to 1:1 images. They were also highly corrected for a flat image plane of the subject - good for making photos of flat text like a newpaper.

The working distance of 50mm macros is rather close to the camera and this can be a problem if the subjects are alive and uncooperative - like bugs or if you cannot get close to the subject because of physical restrictions. The 100mm macros are some of the sharpest lenses made for near photgraphy and allow much more distance to the subject. They will focus from 1:1 to infinity. Nikon, Canon, Vivitar, Tamron all have made excellent 90-100mm macros.

Nikon introduced the 200mm Medical Micro-Nikkor for shooting macro images of a surgical field and needed the longer distance to allow the photgrapher to not intrude into the sterile field. It did not take long for photographers to realize the many advantages of the 180-200mm macro lenses. Good AutoFocus really brought the lenses to the forefront. No longer did you have to pear through a dimly lit Fresnel screen trying to focus properly.

The longer macros have several nice advantages. Because they are longer focal lengths, they do not include as wide an angle of view, which means you have less undesireable stuff included in your background. Because they are telephotos, depth of field is minimized again allowing the photographer to blur the background. And the closer your subject is to the lens the shallower the DOF becomes. A larger aperature helps also. Macros lenses that allow shallow DOF are almost always on interchangeable lens cameras like APS or Full 35mm frame SLRs. Small sensor size cameras like the Nikon CoolPixes made great macros cameras because the small sensor created great depth of field. Many of the 950 - 995 CoolPixes were bought primarily because of the use as macro cameras even tho they were 2 - 3 megapixels. I own a 995 I still use for this purpose. But if you want shallow depth of field it is the wrong tool to bring to the gunfight. The downside of the longer focal length macros is that they are more expensive, larger, heavier, usually slower optically, and have shallower depth of field than a shorter macro. It always helps to use the right tool for the job - right?!

For the very best control of DOF, a full frame 35mm SLR is hard to beat. But the APS sensor size digital SLRS can certainly take very good images also.

Like Shay said:"The trick here is to use a wide aperture setting (e.g f/2.0). Some other things that contribute to the effect are focal length (larger is better e.g. 200mm), distance from camer to subject (the closer the better), distance from subject to background (the farther the better), and also the size of the cameras sensor or film (the larger the better).

Many cameras have a small sensor and so these very shallow DOF shots are harder to get than with a camera that has a large sensor size (not pixels, but total area of the sensor or film).

If you can control any or all of those variables, you can get the shallowest DOF possible."

Here is an image of mine that was shot with a 180mm macro




This image may demonstrate shallow depth of field better tho... f8 1/640 ISO 400

ginger_55

Those macro shots are impressive. Love the butterflies.

wxwax

Excellent, PF. thanks.

pathfinder

ginger_55 wrote:

Those macro shots are impressive. Love the butterflies.

Thank you Ginger. You're welcome waxy

gubbs

If its any help the kitten was taken with an Olympus 8080 at f3.5 at 140mm. The full Telephoto combined with the aperture really makes a huge difference, it keeps catching me out when I forget to close back down again, my "hat on shot" in the challenge demonstrates this pretty well :cry

Andy

Macrophotography Tips and Links 2
okay, pathfinder.. today, i went to b&h and amongst other things, i bought myself a canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens.

now, can you give me some pointers?

pathfinder wrote:

Andy I neglected to mention that the 70-200f2.8 L IS is one of the heaviest lenses that I own and that MAY contribute to my lack of affection. Like you said, outdoors for family, kids, and for basketball games it can do a great job. It is fast, sharp, and handles nicely.. But heavy! And can intimidate some subjects also.

In the macro world I have strong opinions. My first good macro was a 90mm f2.5 Series One Vivitar for an Olympus OM-1. I know it was a really good lens because whoever stole it, thought so too apparently and liked the OM-1 as well. That was over 25 years ago. After that I had an affair with a 60m Nikkor and a 90mm Tamron f2.8. Both were quite satisfactory for film.
There are many fine 50mm macros by Canon, Tamron and Sigma. I think these may be fine for copy stand work of flat subjects, but not much else. Just too short a focal length.

Currently for the 10D I am using a Canon 100mm f2.8 and a Tamron 180mm f3.5 (which I think Tamron is upgrading to a DI type lens in the photo press release world.) Tamron's DI lenses have been highly regarded.
Much of my macros are of bugs and butterflies and flowers and I think that the 180 is the cats meow. The 180 gives much more working distance, less depth of field, and a narrower angle of view - all of these traits I think are helpful in controlling backgrounds. Butterflies are flighty, and the extra elbow room of the 180 is very helpful. Getting close enough for the 100 or 90mm lenses might be tough. I would add one of Canon's macro flash units as well if funds permitted.

If I were doing it over now, I would pass on the Canon 100mm ( which is an absolutely superb lens and tack sharp and I really like a great deal) and pass on the Tamron 180, and belly up and buy the Canon 180 USM macro.


This is an expensive lens but the USM motor is much nicer than the Tamron motor. I found with the 10D that I did much focusing by moving the camera and lens back and forth, but with the 1D I prefer autofocus because it WILL nail it. I think that the Canon 180 would be faster and quieter in autofocus. I really doubt the Canon would be much sharper than my Tamron 180- you can see many of my macros at pathfinder.smugmug.com. Some were with the 10D and some were with the 1dMkll. If price is a major consideration, I would look at the Tamron 90mm macro. It is excellent and may be long enough on the 10D. There are articles on the web suggesting that the Tamron 90 is sharper than the Canon 100mm Macro.

Canon publishes an MTF graph of their 180 Macro and it looks like this
In the Nikon world the 200mm f/4D ED-IF AF Micro-Nikkor is very highly regarded also.

In the end, it depends on how much you plan to use the lens and what your budget is. I have several Tamron lenses and like them a lot, but I have found that the Canon lenses have more robust mechanicals - lens barrels, focusing motors, etc. Makes me think the iris mechanicals might be more durable too. ALtho Canon is very proud of their lenses, I have never regretted owning their better grade of lenses. They truly are better than I once dreamed of owning. And do not forget the Canon macro flash units - they can really help - I also like the macro flash brackets of reallyrightstuff.com as well

Enjoy ( very close up) photography

addendum: I just found this link via google afer I posted : Gives very good reviews of the Vivitar Series One 90 f2.5 and the Tamron 90f2.5. Both of these might be found used if AUtofocus is not a concern.
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007MLq

Addendum#2: Because of Baldy's and many others love of the 70-200 f2.8 IS L Lens, I will offer one other possible style of macro lens -- That is to use the 70-200 f2.8 IS L with Canon's 500D filter style close up lens. Canon says it does not degrade the image quality of EF lenses. Canon also makes a 250D filter-lens for 30-135mm primes lenses. Some information about the 500D is here - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=87503&is=REG

I own and use a 250D in the 58mm diameter size sometimes - It seems to work very nicely - but of course you cannot focus at distance without removing it first. But the 250D and the 500D are chaper than macro primes.
Canon recommends the 250D 58mm diameter specifically for 1:1 macro for the G5 style digicam, and that is what I bought it for.

pathfinder

andy wrote:

okay, pathfinder.. today, i went to b&h and amongst other things, i bought myself a canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens.

now, can you give me some pointers?

Gosh - Andy, me giving you pointers on photography seems wildly inappropriate:D - I should be asking you I would think. Mostly I just wander around and look for interesting looking things - good lighting is the first thing to look for (I know YOU know this , but there will be some readers who look for subjects first, rather than light.). Once you have found good lighting, I just try to find nice sidelit or backlit subjects. The grass seed pod that you liked was just a found object I saw in a nice stream of sunlight. It was the light and the curve of the stem that made the shot. No auxilliary lighting was used for it.

One very good source is in the macro forum at fredmiranda.com. At the top of the macro forum page is a link to the "Macro World Resource" and it is a great resource full of link after link on macro shooting..
For example....
http://www.mplonsky.com/photo/article.htm is a great website which is an introduction to macro photography and here is his gallery of stunning photos
http://www.pbase.com/mplonsky/insects
This gallery will demonstrate quite clearly how much I have to learn about macro work.
******************************************************

Anyway - here is what I do - most of my butterflies were captured in my backyard, but Central Park would certainly offer similar terrain or the woods or the lake - whatever. I usually shoot in the late afternoon sun - about 5-7 pm this summer, but there is frequently shade from large deciduous trees just to the west of the garden. Macro can frequently be done on grey overcast days with electronic flash as the flash head is a very large light source for macro subjects too, especially if you use a diffuser of some type.. I have not tried shooting before sun up but many macro shooters do, to capture the bugs before they have warmed up their metabolism and start moving around.

I use my 180 Tamron lens handheld, because butterlies will never hold still long enough for me to use a tripod and I know a tripod would allow sharper images if the subjects would cooperate. I own a macro focusing rail, but have not found it useful for living subjects, altho I am sure for museum macro work it would be the cat's meow.

A lot of macro work can be done with 50mm lenses and extension tubes or mild telephotos and filter dioptric lenses. Canon makes 250D and 500D two element dioptric lenses in 52mm, 72mm, 77 mm, and 58mm which will fit the front of the 100 Macro or the 70-300 IS DO.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=87494&is=REG
I frequently use a Canon strobe - either a MR-14EX, or a 550EX on a Really Right Stuff flash bracket. ( ww.reallyrightstuff.com)
I use the strobe as a fill light source rather than as the prime source if there is enough light to allow a small enough aperature.

I have not experimented with using the ringlight as a master and a slave as the main light source, but I think this might be a real nice way to get the bright sidelighting you need for small aperatures and fast shutter speeds. But then I would need an assistant to hold the slave strobe and that begins to get complicated.

Knee pads can help with some macro work because it allows you to spend significant time on your knees without discomfort.

This is all I can think of right now - a good knowledge of biology seems to help some macro shooters, but I just shoot what appeals to my eye

jwear

Thanks
GREAT INFO I have to go out and buy a ream of paper .well done much info thank you and the web site wow

pathfinder

I have read, but not verified personally that a 1.4 or 2.0 telextender can be used with a Canon 100 Macro lens IF YOU PUT AN EXTENSION TUBE BETWEEN THE LENS AND THE TELEXTENDER ON THE BODY - you cannot mount the 100 mm macro lens on the Canon telextenders because the front element on the teelextender protrudes - but an extension tube makes sufficient room for it.

Andy

pathfinder wrote:

I have read, but not verified personally that a 1.4 or 2.0 telextender can be used with a Canon 100 Macro lens IF YOU PUT AN EXTENSION TUBE BETWEEN THE LENS AND THE TELEXTENDER ON THE BODY - you cannot mount the 100 mm macro lens on the Canon telextenders because the front element on the teelextender protrudes - but an extension tube makes sufficient room for it.

excuse the m^cr0 n00b question - but, why would one do this? what type of shooting scene or requirement? 'splain, loocy, please?

pathfinder

andy wrote:

excuse the m^cr0 n00b question - but, why would one do this? what type of shooting scene or requirement? 'splain, loocy, please?

I think this will convert the 100 to 200mm macro and give you more relief distance from your subjects. Also will decrease DOF and increase the mag from 1:1 to 2:1 I suspect. I have not done this myself, but extension tubes will be on my shopping list soon.

photocat

Moth on kitchen window
I saw the moth this morning. Went out to take some shots.
They were very dull.
Later in the day, the sun came out, and again I went out to do some moth shots, nothing spectacular...
Finally, I went into the kitchen and saw the moth counterlight, and there it was, the shot I wanted.
I had to climb on the counter, (if you know that i move like a 90 year old, although I am fourthysomething), you will notice that this climbing took me some time, grin, but finally I managed to take some pics of the moth on the window.
I have the impression though that my shots are not as sharp as I had them with my minolta dimage 7I. I used the nikon d70 with the 28-200mm, macro setting.
Is that the sharpest I can get?

wxwax

Hi 'cat. What was your shutter speed? Did you use a tripod?

photocat

Tripod?
I did not use a tripod, it would have been extremely difficult to keep myself up the counter and a tripod too...
I could easily do macro with my minolta handheld, and they were rasor sharp.
I don't even see to good if the moth is really sharp.
I should have kept my minolta for macro probably...
Anyway, I guess it all comes down to learn your camera and find out in the long rum what works and what doesn't.
The nikon has also to be on 80 mm to be able to do macro, so not much DOF...
I used shutterspeed 1/320, aperture of 10