Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
Macro's are so hard to find a composition plus the fact they take way more ISO. What can I do better?
Macro
- Thread starter Darcy Grizzle
- Start date
Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
I couldn't focus stack due to pretty good wind, which I should have not even tried with a macro lens hahahha. But I loved the look of this little lantana which wasn't even the size of a quarter. Its like a ring of fire!
AlanLichty
Moderator
I was just about to suggest the focus stack and then scrolled down. Not possible with windy conditions and it doesn't take much wind to mess that method up. What lens and f/stop were you using? A longer lens can help with closeups sometimes. That may seem counterintuitive but by backing up from the subject with a long lens what counts as in focus for a given f/stop can give you more depth.
That's some hard conditions to shoot in Darcy. For macro, the first this is you need to do it on a day with no wind... 
There is some softness, probably from the lack of DOF and not being able to focus stack. Having the outer edges of the flower so sharp from your layer mask looks a bit odd since the flowers themselves are not sharp, so it's making the blurring of the background look too obvious.
This is a good start, you just need to take the flower into the house to shoot next time.
There is some softness, probably from the lack of DOF and not being able to focus stack. Having the outer edges of the flower so sharp from your layer mask looks a bit odd since the flowers themselves are not sharp, so it's making the blurring of the background look too obvious.
This is a good start, you just need to take the flower into the house to shoot next time.
Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
Tokina 100 2.8 f16 at 1/30 second. Handheld in the shade so I know a tripod would have helped
Yep, shooting 100m lens at 1/30th of a second is not going to yield many sharp shots. As a general rule unless you have vibration reduction on the lens is you would want to shoot at a minimum of 1/100th of a second to hand hold this and for some people it would 1/200th. It just depends on how steady you can hold the camera.Tokina 100 2.8 f16 at 1/30 second. Handheld in the shade so I know a tripod would have helped
So, handholding plus wind movement... that's a tough one!
Darcy, this looks pretty good to me. I am not so concerned with sharpness and focus as the overall impact of the image. This is very good. You have a very nice subject with great colors and a good background.
I might clone out that bright object behind the petal at 3 o'clock and the light green place lower right.
Next time I would keep the aperture and shutter speed where they need to be and bump the ISO to whatever is required.
I might clone out that bright object behind the petal at 3 o'clock and the light green place lower right.
Next time I would keep the aperture and shutter speed where they need to be and bump the ISO to whatever is required.
Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
Thank you Ben, and this was at 5000 ISO. I might should have brought down the fstop a little to get a faster shutter but then may have added blur to the flower
stevendillonphoto
Well-Known Member
Well, you already know a couple of things that would help. I only compose with a tripod. Depending on the subject, if the wind speed is under 5MPH, a plamp can help steady it. Try to time your shutter releases to when the wind lets up. If it is a steady wind, it may be time to pack up for the day. Composing in the morning is usually best because the warmth of the day has yet to heat up the atmosphere and get the wind going. I also use a remote shutter release mechanism and have mirror lock up on. With macro, as you are either finding or will discover, ANY movement will reduce the sharpness. And, the more you magnify, the worse it gets. If you want really sharp images, then you have to take steps to get the most out of your equipment and subject. Plus, don't feel bad that most of your images will be thrown out. Unless you have a really good environment (good light and very low to no wind), expect most of your images to show movement. As macro photographers, we're lucky to get a single keeper out of hundreds of images (in conditions that are unfavorable).
Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
Steve thank you
Kurt Harrigan
Well-Known Member
Just from going off the info you gave on the light and camera settings I could offer a few suggestions. First you might want to rethink the idea of getting the entire flower in focus and maybe try to single out something unique about the flower. You stated "ring of fire" as something that caught your eye so the main element here could be color. If you were to open up the aperture to f/8 you would gain 2 stops of shutter speed so you go from 1/30 to 1/120 - not great but it helps a lot at 100mm. At f/5.6 you will be up to around 1/240 - at that point you may be able to lower your ISO a little to ~4000. Now you have a faster shutter speed and a lower ISO both of which will help with sharpness. At this point you will lose DOF but you gain in a few other ways: 1. the background will be very blurred helping you to isolate the subject 2. by limiting that which is in focus you can draw the viewers eye further into the subject. In this shot red is the primary color and you will want that to be exposed correctly - what I do is take a shot and look at the red histogram to determine my exposure - if you use aperture priority on a shot like this it will be way off so you'll have to manually drop/raise the exposure using the exposure compensation button. At this point take another shot and check your exposure and make another adjustment if need. Once the exposure shows no clipping in the red channel you can then go about determining where you want your plane of focus to be. Whew!!! It might sound complicated but once you get used to doing this it goes pretty fast.
I tried to find a similar image in my library but could only find this one:
Not exactly the same but we had similar issues: I was in the shade, there was some wind, the circular character of the flower made it hard to get the whole thing is focus, and the main component here was yellow vs. red but you still use the red channel to determine your exposure. Ok, I knew I wanted to isolate something so I manually focused on the bright center of the flower and I kept shooting at different apertures until the front and back flowers looked appropriately out of focus. This happened to occur around f/7.1. With your flower you may or may not do the same thing but just try focusing on the center of the flower and start from there. Being handheld you are going to waver a bit back and forth and sometimes you get a better shot as the plane of focus is in a slightly different place. Oh, I try to shoot from ground level with my elbows on the ground. If you try this standing up all bets are off!
I tried to find a similar image in my library but could only find this one:
Not exactly the same but we had similar issues: I was in the shade, there was some wind, the circular character of the flower made it hard to get the whole thing is focus, and the main component here was yellow vs. red but you still use the red channel to determine your exposure. Ok, I knew I wanted to isolate something so I manually focused on the bright center of the flower and I kept shooting at different apertures until the front and back flowers looked appropriately out of focus. This happened to occur around f/7.1. With your flower you may or may not do the same thing but just try focusing on the center of the flower and start from there. Being handheld you are going to waver a bit back and forth and sometimes you get a better shot as the plane of focus is in a slightly different place. Oh, I try to shoot from ground level with my elbows on the ground. If you try this standing up all bets are off!
Darcy Grizzle
Well-Known Member
So glad you chimed in on this. I haven't been shooting much this summer, but was just thinking this morning I need to get back out, even if it is only in my backyard. I will try doing your suggestions maybe this weekend!
Ken Rennie
Well-Known Member
Darcy having spent a few weeks playing at shooting macro shots in a wind I know the frustration and spent many hours hand stitching focus stacks from moving flowers. Just a thought about exposure for red/ orange flowers. sRGB quickly overexposes/ runs into oversaturation problems in red/ orange. I, like many people shoot in RGB color space and use the histogram to set exposure. However if you set you camera to sRGB color space you will probably find that you have overexposed the reds/ oranges. Using the sRGB histogram will cause you to cut your exposure time. Although I am definitely no expert with flowers/ macro I have found that a flash with a diffuser overcomes many problems the short flash length overcomes the movement and allows the use of near to base ISO, the diffuser softens the light. It may not be as nice as soft diffused sunlight on a flat calm day but in this country at least such conditions are few and far between. Ken