January Challenge - Macro - Discussion Thread

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Got hold of a reversing ring off ebay for a couple of quid and tried it with the Summicron 50.

http://imageshack.us/g/822/match900x600.jpg/

Seems to do a nice job. The picture quality is as good as used 'the right way round' but you don't get much depth of field, even stopped right down, and the focusing ring is useless: you need to vary the distance between camera and target to focus, presumably bellows would help here.
 
I think I'm going to have to have a go at this finally. Followed it quite a lot last year but never submitted anything. Seen some cracking photos being posted.

Not sure how I'll stand up, but it's a good way to get some constructive feedback on some of my work.

I'll be using the Pentax k-r mostly with my three lenses. I have a 300mm macro. But I fancy playing with my new FA 50mm Pentax. it's been a beast so far.
 
Tried to shoot some macro water drops without a speedlight/external flash.

The results are too noisey like (iso 400) not a fan of the lens like but only one i have suitable i think, so don't think i'll enter them this month.

Couldn't get the light bright enough to use a low ISO, and my onboard flash was useless really. I used a macro ring flash to try and give some light but i was using a 70-300 in macro mode so i was quite a distance from the subject. Also had to sync the shutter rather than the flash which was a huge lesson in trial and error.

Here are some of the 'better' shots

I used a lamp clamped onto the tap i was using to drip into a white bowl.

Exif data
Camera Nikon D3100
Exposure 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture f/8.0
ISO Speed 400
Manual Focus.


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Untitled by Graeme Elliott Photography, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/graemeelliottphotography/6738477771/
Untitled by Graeme Elliott Photography, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/graemeelliottphotography/6738465913/
Untitled by Graeme Elliott Photography, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/graemeelliottphotography/6738463645/
Untitled by Graeme Elliott Photography, on Flickr
 
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I'm very confused by these water drop shots.

Elliot's exposure was 1/200
Searoad's was 10 seconds.

Is it because of the darkened room or a complete different aperature?
 
I think the difference is that mine are synced by shutter speed (i.e relatively fast shutter to freeze motion). 1/200 was a fine balance between this and letting enough light in.

Searoads must have synced with flash to freeze the motion, meaning that the shutter speed is fairly irrelevant as the flash correctly expose the image for the duration of the predetermined flash speed, a low power of 1/32 or 1/64 i think. This is the best way to do it like.

The darkened room helps freeze the motion as the camera would see nothing expect for the fraction of time the flash is fired.

I havn't got the equipment so had to light the room as much as possible and freeze motion with the shutter.

The aperture used can be important for letting the light in but imo for these type of macro shots it's easier to use something like f8 to get a decent DOF, basically making it a bit easier to get everything in focus.
 
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Elliott said:
I think the difference is that mine are synced by shutter speed (i.e relatively fast shutter to freeze motion). 1/200 was a fine balance between this and letting enough light in.

Searoads must have synced with flash to freeze the motion, meaning that the shutter speed is fairly irrelevant as the flash correctly expose the image for the duration of the predetermined flash speed, a low power of 1/32 or 1/64 i think. This is the best way to do it like.

The darkened room helps freeze the motion as the camera would see nothing expect for the fraction of time the flash is fired.

I havn't got the equipment so had to light the room as much as possible and freeze motion with the shutter.

The aperture used can be important for letting the light in but imo for these type of macro shots it's easier to use something like f8 to get a decent DOF, basically making it a bit easier to get everything in focus.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. Cheers for that. Would need a hand held flash...
 
yep, just to clarify the way I did it, the darkened room; doesn't need to be pitch black but the darker the better, I had a small table lamp on the other side of the room but I cast a shadow over where the drops were going to fall. It is really only to get a sharp exposure with a good DOF. F22 or something like that, I cant remember the exact number but it was large!

The flash speed is likely to be up in the tens of thousandths of a second which works very differently than 1/200th using the shutter. Yes hand held flash is required but the good news is just about ANY hand held flash will do - as long as you can fire it away from the camera!

I thought Elliot's pics looked really good. I might have tried it by lifting the bowl higher / putting the camera at a lower angle to get some separation of the drop from the background water and added more light maybe but they looked ok to me... I do have some very similar ones!:)

Although I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds it could as easily have been 30 or 60 seconds, it makes little difference to the shot... 10 secs was a convenient time to fumble for the button on the flash, get the bottles ready and try and remember the timing from the last one! :)

Another area I found that made a difference was the background! Although not seen in the image, their reflection from the surface of the water could give some very distracting artifacts. The position of the flash has a huge impact too. Above and shining down was a good place to start...

This all sounds like it's a right palaver but it doesn't take long to set up and really is worth giving it a go! ..or you could go outside and play. :)
 
Well I got an entry in - even though it's crap. I decided I'd enter every month this year instead of falling by the wayside as I've done in the past - at least it encourages me to pick up a camera, even if I can't read the bloody dials anymore.
 
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