Twelve-spotted Skimmer
- Thread starter Amy Earl
- Start date
AlanLichty
Moderator
Nice capture. That narrow DoF is exactly why I like shooting closeups of blooms and bugs with a telephoto lens. You get just enough DoF to capture your subject and leave all of the background distractions OOF. Shooting a scene like this with a closeup/macro lens would almost require a focus stacked shot and your dragonfly would be long gone by the time you got set up. 
Amy Earl
Well-Known Member
Thanks! It was a challenge to shoot this handheld from such a short distance, but feasible. If a bit painful I had to use manual focus for this shot because there are some autofocus issues I have yet to find a fix for. It sometimes fails to find the subject at close range, even when there is no contrast issue and the subject is isolated from the background as this dragonfly was. The lens does have a nice feature which autofocuses like normal but allows you to then fine-tune manually with the focus ring.
I had to use manual focus for this shot because there are some autofocus issues I have yet to find a fix for. It sometimes fails to find the subject at close range, even when there is no contrast issue and the subject is isolated from the background as this dragonfly was. The lens does have a nice feature which autofocuses like normal but allows you to then fine-tune manually with the focus ring.
Beth
Well-Known Member
love this.
check that your camera is in autofocus continuous and set the af to tracking. the af bracket or box (depending on what af mode you pick) should snap on to the dragonfly and follow it. mark galer (youtube) has some good videos on how to setup your camera. i think he's mainly a bird photographer, so you might want to see if someone has a macro setup if you intend to do more macro with this lens.
check that your camera is in autofocus continuous and set the af to tracking. the af bracket or box (depending on what af mode you pick) should snap on to the dragonfly and follow it. mark galer (youtube) has some good videos on how to setup your camera. i think he's mainly a bird photographer, so you might want to see if someone has a macro setup if you intend to do more macro with this lens.
Amy Earl
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the tip! This camera's menu has more parameters for AF than I'm used to and I haven't learned them all yet - or how they work in combination. Makes sense that macro would require a different setup than birds. And switching from birds in foliage to birds in flight is another challenge. Luckily this lens/body combo is so powerful that I'm pulling off quite a few successful shots without knowing what I'm doing yet