Macro Creepy Crab

[SallyM]

One of the creepy crabs found on the rocky shoreline near Dibba in the UAE. There were thousands of them and they were so tiny and fast that we couldn't see any of their features with the human eye. Gotta love the macro lens. I only got the lens for Christmas so would appreciate any comments or suggestions on how to improve macro shots? Getting the right Depth of Field seams tricky to master with Macro? This was taken with a 100mm F2.8mm M set at F9.0 1/80 ISO 100. C & C welcome. Thanks. Sally

[Dave Humphries]

I only got the lens for Christmas so would appreciate any comments or suggestions on how to improve macro shots? Getting the right Depth of Field seams tricky to master with Macro? This was taken with a 100mm F2.8mm M set at F9.0 1/80 ISO 100. C & C welcome.

Hi Sally,

That's good for an 'on-the-run' capture.
I do feel you could crop off nearly 40% of the image on the right and not lose anything significant though, given the way it is facing.

More generally:

DoF - there's never enough - I have a similar lens and just shoot everything at f/16, only going wider when I absolutely have to; e.g. because I can't raise the iso or slow the shutter speed any more (without spoiling the image in other ways).

In controlled (and static) conditions, focus stacking offers a solution. We have many members who are good at this; FrankMi and Mat (flyingsquirrel) to name but two (my apologies to anyone else I missed)

In the field, that's unlikely to be viable, so adding light, by using flash (ring or otherwise) is about the only practical method to allow you to use f/16 or f/22 on a moving subject and maximise DoF.

Have you seen our tutorials?
Start here

Cheers,

[SallyM]

Hi Sally,

That's good for an 'on-the-run' capture.
I do feel you could crop off nearly 40% of the image on the right and not lose anything significant though, given the way it is facing.

More generally:

DoF - there's never enough - I have a similar lens and just shoot everything at f/16, only going wider when I absolutely have to; e.g. because I can't raise the iso or slow the shutter speed any more (without spoiling the image in other ways).

In controlled (and static) conditions, focus stacking offers a solution. We have many members who are good at this; FrankMi and Mat (flyingsquirrel) to name but two (my apologies to anyone else I missed)

In the field, that's unlikely to be viable, so adding light, by using flash (ring or otherwise) is about the only practical method to allow you to use f/16 or f/22 on a moving subject and maximise DoF.

Have you seen our tutorials?
Start here

Cheers,

Thanks for your response Dave. I never usually take my flash in broad daylight as I like to use natural light but will have to get it out and experiment. I'll take a look at the tutorials for Macro photography I didn't realise there were any on here. Thanks!