Daisy - Practising My Macro Photography

[Ben M]

Hi, here is a macro pic that I've taken of a daisy a couple of days ago. I've been doing a bit of practising. I only got my DSLR in October, so I'm not very good.

What do you guys think? How can I improve the pic, and are there any things that I'm doing right.

For those who may be interested, this pic was taken with my Canon 1000D, using the Tamron SP AF90mm F/2.8 Di macro 1:1 lens.

cheers

 

[Steve Smith]

Looks great Think about composition though. Could you get anything else nice and blurred in the background perhaps, maybe a little more greenery?

 

[Ben M]

Thanks for the reply. I have been thinking about how to make the background better. I'll have another go tomorrow (school finishes early for the holidays, so it should hopefully be quite sunny) and I'll put a foxglove leaf behind it to make a better background.

Any other advice?

cheers

 

[ceg4048]

Hi,
That will only serve to distract the viewer. In macro, the idea is to blur the background as much as possible so that maximum attention is paid to the subject. The reason for this is that one has a hard enough time getting the subject properly focused in the first place.

In order to improve this shot you should use a smaller aperture and a faster shutter speed because I can see that there is movement of the subject which has caused blurring. This can be seen at the 11 O'clock position where the petal is blurred. This clearly indicates motion due to wind, which is a second issue. If you wish to avoid motion then either uses something to block the wind or be patient when taking the shot so that the subject is not in motion when you snap the shutter.

To get an even better composition carry a fine brush around with you so that you can clean the subject of debris prior to taking the shot. It can be seen in this shot where debris from the center has contaminated the white petals at the 10 o'clock and 12 o'clock positions and where other dirt has contaminated the petals on the lower right quarter section of the flower.

Using a flash will help not only to give you better sharpness and less blurring, but will also help to give you better detail, contrast and color rendition, especially when you have flat or dull lighting such as on a cloudy day.

Cheers,

 

[Ben M]

Hi, thanks for taking the time to explain so thoroughly. I will take note of what you have suggested and do what you said tomorrow. I didn't notice the debris on the petals until I uploaded the pics, so I'll clean the flower next time. Instead of putting a leaf behind the flower, would placing some grass behind it help? If I put it as far away from the flower as possible so it is blurred? It was quite windy when I took the picture, I tried to block the wind (and failed lol). I didn't think of using a flash to be honest, I'll try that next time.

Cheers

 

[ceg4048]

Yep, no worries mate. the problem with macro is that it produces images that have so much detail that if you are at all sloppy then you wind up taking pictures of your mistakes.

In a macro shot we are not at all concerned with getting detail in the background and we try to make the background as inconspicuous as possible. In my opinion the background you have in that shot is perfect because the colors are dark or subdued and the details are pleasantly blurred without any sharp or obvious edges. This is referred to as "Bokeh" and it's a compliment to your technique as well as to the performance of your lens. The blurring of the backround is as important as the sharpness of the subject itself because the background acts as a support to force the viewer to pay attention to the subject. If you have bright colors, sharp objects, or an otherwise busy background it actually distracts the viewer. Without trying to have a go at you or anything like that, I have to say that the background is actually the best part of that shot. I wouldn't change a thing on that score because it was brilliant.

Remember though that when you stop down (i.e. use a smaller aperture) this increases the sharpness not only of the subject, but of the background, so you may find that all of a sudden the background becomes more distracting on your next shots. That's just a catch-22 we have to live with. When you use a flash with small apertures however you will find that the background becomes under-exposed (darker) so the shot will have a completely different "feel". For now though, work on getting the sharpest possible and most blur free flower petals. Fix one thing at a time.

When you take the shot are you looking through the viewfinder or are you using live view on an LCD screen? This is another one of my pet peeves against LCD screens on the back of cameras. Your peripheral vision distracts you. When you look through the viewfinder you can only see the world from the perspective of the lens and so you are more apt to pay attention to details which seem minor at the time but which then turn out to be major faults.

Cheers,

 

[ghostsword]

It is a good start and the advice given is useful for my own trouble using a macro. I have not managed yet to take a blur free pic but I'm working on it !


.

 

[Anonymous]

I've waited for Clive to lecture you .. I know he's a big story teller, I'm not, so besides what he told you some quick tips from me:

1. Use a tripod suited for your camera weight, this is by far most important thing in macro, you need to adjust the camera and keep it in place, wait for the right conditions and take the shot and sometimes this takes a wile.
2. Block the mirror and take a delayed shot, 2s-10s depending on the shutter speed, this prevents camera shaking. Instead of delaying the shot you could use a remote control if you have one.
3. Disable the Image stabilization when using a tripod (well I just copy paste this advice to you since I only use vintage manual lenses) but folks told me this should improve things.

Say hello to my friend:

Not the best shot in terms of bokeh though .. still testing these lenses

More in the next episode

 

[ghostsword]

Great tips, I for sure will follow them.

This is my attempt:

Blooms by GHOSTSWORD, on Flickr

 

[ceg4048]

Hi mate,
A good effort. I love how the yellow stamens sort of float, suspended in space. This is a case though where the background competes with the subject for attention. The brightest part of the image is actually the upper left corner, and at looking at the image for the first time, the viewer is at first attracted to this corner, even if it's only for a microsecond. It might have been wort getting in closer for a tighter shot and/or using a flash to give a 1 stop or so advantage to the flower petals, most of which appear grey instead of white in competition with the open sky in the corner. The wood has also lost detail in shadow, which of course is optional, but I can't help wondering what it looks like properly exposed. There's just too much sky mate. Sky even peeks out from under the wood. A high shutter speed with flash would give the advantage to the subject.

Cheers,

 

[Anonymous]

Since it's about macro here is another way to setup your gear at ground level, not a very technical video but you should find some useful insight there:

 

[ghostsword]

Hi mate,
A good effort. I love how the yellow stamens sort of float, suspended in space. This is a case though where the background competes with the subject for attention. The brightest part of the image is actually the upper left corner, and at looking at the image for the first time, the viewer is at first attracted to this corner, even if it's only for a microsecond. ,

Thanks Clive, the lens is a way above my capabilities, but I am working on it, and soon will master it. Then need to work on composition. and that is slightly harder to sort out.

Thanks for all the advice, will get there in the end.

 

[Ben M]

Thanks for all of the replies. That video is very helpful, I have been taking pictures from above, so I'll try taking them from ground level (maybe that will help with blurring the background).

About the tripods: I can't seem to find a decent tripod that I can place really low to the floor (as low as in the video). Are there any small tripods that can go as low as a few inches from the ground?

Also, what is the mirror? And how do you disable the image stabilisation?

cheers

 

[George Farmer]

..what is the mirror? And how do you disable the image stabilisation?

The mirror is what opens and shuts to let light through from the lens to the sensor.

The action of the mirror moving can cause enough vibration to blur an image, especially with macro and/or slow shutter speeds.

Use mirror lock-up to avoid this. You press the shutter release once to open the mirror, then again to capture the image (and close the mirror).

Using mirror lock-up with self-timer enables you to use it with one press and avoids possible camera shake via you pressing the shutter release with your hand.

A remote shutter release is also a good idea for macro work; I bought one for £3 from ebay.

Image stabilisation (IS) on Canon cameras is via the lens only. There's a switch on the lens. Not all lenses have it.

Regarding tripods -

With good light and large aperture you should be able to get away without using a tripod. With a 100mm macro you'll probably need at least 1/160+ shutter speed. Faster if you shake like me!

If there's not enough light to get fast enough shutter speed I usually just crank up the ISO. Most modern DSLR can handle ISO 800 with minimal noise. The last shot in this series was shot at ISO 1600.

All this said, tripods are useful for composition though, so you can take your time.

As Clive has mentioned, I think the one of the key points to getting a strong image is lack of distraction. With macro this should be relatively easy, as you can get so close to the subject.

Here's three shots without tripod or flash.

 

[spyder]

George, just gotta say that last image is my cuppa tea.

Most of my macro work is done on the kitchen worktop. I use an A4 backing card with a hobby clamp that has 2 adjustable arms with clips on the ends. 1 will hold the subject and the other holds a small home made reflector. Going tight on apeture and long exposure is great fun and no wind to deal with. Tripod and remote are not optional. The lens cap hangs nicely on the eye piece to reduce light through the viewfinder.

I've snatched these from my facebook profile hence compression.

 

[bigmatt]

With good light and large aperture you should be able to get away without using a tripod. With a 100mm macro you'll probably need at least 1/160+ shutter speed. Faster if you shake like me!

Reassuring for a Weapons Tech....
Matt