The learning curve of very high magnification...

Robinivich

The other day I was running around taking snaps of flies in the greenery starting to take hold in the garden, when I noticed that in a few of my snaps there were smaller characters in the background, so it was time to break out my freshly arrived adapters, tubes and 50mm on the sigma 150mm. After some fun on my hands and knees, I thought I'd share my results and experience:







These are uncropped, the frame is something like 3-4mm across, depending on the focus setting on the main lens, and I know the green fellow is an aphid, around 1mm body length.

What did I learn? I need to get some focus stacking going... These were at f8, I didn't want to go lower because of diffraction, but I may end up doing so, since at this point it'll be a worthwhile tradeoff.

Also, it's almost impossible to even tell if and when your subject is in focus in the first place! There's so little that's in focus that it was more a "best guess" as to when the desired bits of subject were actually in focus, I'm used to having to take tons of images while rocking back and forth, but with less than 2x magnification, at least I could be certain what's in focus in a given instant...

I also am starting to have more difficulty with getting E-TTL to behave (I think subject distance is now requiring finer adjustments than usual, all these shots were -2 Flash exposure compensation, but I'll bet this is something I'll have worked out once I settle on some fairly standard exposure levels. I'll see how I do tweaking manual flash.

Still, all in all it was a lot of fun playing with my toys! Not to mention a pretty good workout crawling around, holding my breath, and trying to keep control of everything that's now hanging off the front of my camera!

And on that note, I leave you with some less extreme results of the last few days, all with my new sigma 150mm, some with extension tubes:

Lord Vetinari

LIke the last 3 shots

Higher power work does take some getting used to. I think focus stacking technique does come in useful here even if you don't actually stack the shots as it makes you effectively focus bracket the subject.
Looking at the low and the higher power shots , think you may need to do something with your flash setup. The low power ones look a little harsh (need more diffusion) but in the high power ones it looks like the flash is hitting the background rather than the subject (you need it to hit both).

Brian V.

Robinivich

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Looking at the low and the higher power shots , think you may need to do something with your flash setup. The low power ones look a little harsh (need more diffusion) but in the high power ones it looks like the flash is hitting the background rather than the subject (you need it to hit both).

hehehe, the flash bracket's in the mail, and while my first attempt at your coke can diffuser has experienced catastrophic duct-tape failure, I've yet to get around to replacing it, though I must say it works wonderfully!! It gives wonderful results, just be sure to use a fairly new roll of tape, not one that's been in the garage for eons.

I absolutely agree with the your comments re the focus stacking technique being helpful, and it pains me to say it, but the top 3 are some of my best results out of a series of frames so far. I expect to do better once I've got a proper bracket, right now my camera and flash arrangements could really use that third arm I've always wanted. The same applies to the last 3, actually, it just affects it less when the subject is bigger and further from the lens. Here's the current setup, minus the 50mm that I reversed onto the front for the high magnification:


I don't have any images of myself using this kit, but I expect it must look a little strange. And in case you're wondering, like I sometimes do, why I choose to burden myself with the battery grip, it's because sometimes have another shutter release button comes in quite handy, in the strange game of twister I get to play when the angle of the flash has to change

Thanks for your input Brian!!!

Skippy

Robinivich wrote:

The other day I was running around taking snaps of flies in the greenery starting to take hold in the garden, when I noticed that in a few of my snaps there were smaller characters in the background, so it was time to break out my freshly arrived adapters, tubes and 50mm on the sigma 150mm. After some fun on my hands and knees, I thought I'd share my results and experience:

These are uncropped, the frame is something like 3-4mm across, depending on the focus setting on the main lens, and I know the green fellow is an aphid, around 1mm body length.

What did I learn? I need to get some focus stacking going... These were at f8, I didn't want to go lower because of diffraction, but I may end up doing so, since at this point it'll be a worthwhile tradeoff.

Also, it's almost impossible to even tell if and when your subject is in focus in the first place! There's so little that's in focus that it was more a "best guess" as to when the desired bits of subject were actually in focus, I'm used to having to take tons of images while rocking back and forth, but with less than 2x magnification, at least I could be certain what's in focus in a given instant...

I also am starting to have more difficulty with getting E-TTL to behave (I think subject distance is now requiring finer adjustments than usual, all these shots were -2 Flash exposure compensation, but I'll bet this is something I'll have worked out once I settle on some fairly standard exposure levels. I'll see how I do tweaking manual flash.

Still, all in all it was a lot of fun playing with my toys! Not to mention a pretty good workout crawling around, holding my breath, and trying to keep control of everything that's now hanging off the front of my camera!

And on that note, I leave you with some less extreme results of the last few days, all with my new sigma 150mm, some with extension tubes:

Hi Robin, good series your showing us here.
The shallow DOF can be very frustrating to work with at times,
I struggle with it myself.

Getting the Flash where you need it and want it, is another problem that many folks shooting macro have to contend with.

I see you have posted that your Flash Bracket is in the mail,
my I ask what one you chose?

Your doing very well, I love the last shot ..... Skippy
.

Robinivich

Thanks for the feedback!

I went with the wimberley F-2 bracket, http://www.tripodhead.com/products/flash-bracket-macro-brackets.cfm, it seems very flexible, almost like joining 4 ballheads together, so I expect it to have many many uses. I'll make sure to update once I have it in hand.

GOLDENORFE

last 2 bee shots great, really good dof on last shot for a non stacked image. .
my extension tubes in post, looks lot more difficult with higher mag.
phil.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldenorfe/

Robinivich

GOLDENORFE wrote:

last 2 bee shots great, really good dof on last shot for a non stacked image. .
my extension tubes in post, looks lot more difficult with higher mag.
phil.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldenorfe/

Thank you!

The occasional shot will work well even with very little DOF, and these two are the happy results! F/11 at a little over 1:1, something like 1.3:1, I'd estimate.

The trouble with the high mag setup is that in order to have a viewfinder you can actually see through, the lens really needs to be wide open, and the DOF at 150mm f2.8 with tubes and a reversed 50, well, there basically isn't any, probably less that the thickness of a piece of paper, so you need to be really steady to even know if you're close to in focus, and I'm not there yet.