Learning the Tokina 100 2.8 Macro

[Darcy Grizzle]

I played around with this lens a little more today, I think so far so good. These were all handheld at f22, 1/125 second at ISO 3200. Dang you gotta get the ISO up high to get a shutter speed that doesn't move when you breathe LOL. I did forget to test the limit switch but will get to that.

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks like you are having some fun with your new toy.

This is why I shoot almost everything with a tripod. A macro shot is extremely sensitive to even the slightest motion of the camera during the shot and you almost can't shoot fast enough to make up for hand held. Not always convenient by any means but it can make a world of difference in the results.

Shots #2 and #4 are the ones my eyes gravitate towards in this set - although I will admit to having a bias towards seeing the center of the flower in focus. Both of those could use just a touch of highlight suppression to offset the light angle.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Looks like you are having some fun with your new toy.

This is why I shoot almost everything with a tripod. A macro shot is extremely sensitive to even the slightest motion of the camera during the shot and you almost can't shoot fast enough to make up for hand held. Not always convenient by any means but it can make a world of difference in the results.

Shots #2 and #4 are the ones my eyes gravitate towards in this set - although I will admit to having a bias towards seeing the center of the flower in focus. Both of those could use just a touch of highlight suppression to offset the light angle.

Does that mean take the highlights down? I took them all the way down....but I did bring the shadows up....so maybe I need to take the exposure down a little in post? I put #4 as my screen saver & OMG I am loving it. I do like 2 & 4 also, and agree with you on the center of the flower being in focus. Yeah I either will need to get a monopod or use a tripod for macro's. Then I can probably drop my ISO too!

 

[AlanLichty]

Does that mean take the highlights down? I took them all the way down....but I did bring the shadows up....so maybe I need to take the exposure down a little in post? I put #3 as my screen saver & OMG I am loving it. I do like 2 & 4 also, and agree with you on the center of the flower being in focus. Yeah I either will need to get a monopod or use a tripod for macro's. Then I can probably drop my ISO too!

You can maybe drop the ISO - but do bear in mind that even a slight breeze is going to move your subject so you still might want to keep shooting fast. You should be able to stay out of the noise world with 3200 as your ISO.

What you could try for the processing is to reset everything and then adjust the exposure to get a good starting point that leaves you some room to still tweak the highlights/shadows. You could almost add some shadows to both of those (if using Lightroom move the slider to the left). Check the histogram and also make sure that the black is as far to the left as you can go without getting a warning about the blacks. That will help add a lot of color if the histogram isn't spread out to the full width.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

I reset them and these are SOOC's of 2 & 4 and they show just a little black clipping. So maybe I shouldn't have played with them at all other than maybe noise and up the blacks

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Here is the histogram and it is pretty much the same on 2 & 4. Hmmm Jim if you would like to move this to either post processing or critique please don't hesitate!

 

[AlanLichty]

Here is the histogram and it is pretty much the same on 2 & 4. Hmmm Jim if you would like to move this to either post processing or critique please don't hesitate!

Agree - this might be a good candidate for Critique. The histogram looks pretty good. I am a bit surprised at the black clipping with an image showing few truly black shadowy areas at all.

 

[JimFox]

These are great shots Darcy!

I think Alan's made a bunch of good suggestions for you.

As a general rule, Sharpness is king. So if you lower the iso in a desire for less noise but instead you get blurring shots because the shutter speed got too slow. Then that's a bad trade off. You can for most noise correct or minimize it in processing. But when it comes to sharpeness, you can't make something sharp if it was blurry. You are stuck with it.

 

[Jim Dockery]

I agree with Alan & Jim on the tripod, you really did amazingly well for such high ISO hand held. I also got my first full on macro lens this summer, and am just learning to use it.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

I agree with Alan & Jim on the tripod, you really did amazingly well for such high ISO hand held. I also got my first full on macro lens this summer, and am just learning to use it.

Too bad you don't live here as we could go shooting & you could give this girl some tips, as I am sure you will master yours waaaay before I do

 

[Kyle Jones]

I never worry about having a touch of black clipping in my shots. 2 and 4 caught my eye too, and 4 is especially nice.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

I never worry about having a touch of black clipping in my shots. 2 and 4 caught my eye too, and 4 is especially nice.

Thank you Kyle very much . I love #4 also and have it still as my screensaver at home! It brightens up my kitchen wonderfully!