Hard at work

[Ramblinman]

I'm lucky enough to have a very large bush in front of my apartment window that allowed me to take these pics from the inside.

[carregwen]

I'm lucky enough to have a very large bush in front of my apartment window that allowed me to take these pics from the inside.

Paul

May I be honest? I had a look at your website images, and I thought they were excellent. I especially like the close-up car shots, but the portraits are pretty good too. These macro shots are not up to that standard, and I'm wondering if you are just experimenting with this type of shot? I would urge you to post some of the shots on your site.

[Ramblinman]

Thanks! As for the macro shots, I am experementing. I have to admit, macro is a bit on the difficult side but I am slowly figuring it out.
As for my other shots, I post what I feel are my best photographs.

I was able to take more macro pictures on Friday and Saturday and I feel that the ones below are much better. I felt brave enough to walk outside and risk the chance of getting stung by bees and wasps. The pictures in the original post were taken from behind the window.





http://www.paulrizziphotography.com/...29852626_TkqRM

[carregwen]

Thanks! As for the macro shots, I am experementing. I have to admit, macro is a bit on the difficult side but I am slowly figuring it out.

Yes, it is difficult, and does take some getting used to. I must admit I'm useless at shooting bugs, so I stick to macro shots of flowers.

The pictures in the original post were taken from behind the window.

I thought they looked a little bleary. It's always tricky shooting through glass.

This one is much better, and you seem to have the exposure more balanced.

[Geoff F]

Yes, Paul, macro is difficult.

You don't say which camera or lens. Having the correct equipment and a good tripod are essential for consistent good results.

Apart from that, you need good depth of field (which can be as little as 1/2 inch) so a small aperture is needed. Increasing the ISO is often necessary and sometimes flash is needed. All of which takes a bit of experimentation.

Trying to get a good camera angle and manually focusing (which is never easy on a moving subject) all help. Too often, auto focus will focus on a sharp edged twig or leaf instead of a soft edged insect. If you have to auto focus, just using the centre focusing point will cut down on the false focus problems.

But the main thing is just keep shooting and try to work out why the failures went wrong. You will get plenty of failures with macro photography.

[Ramblinman]

Geoff,

I used a Canon 5D with the 100mm Macro lens.

For most of the insect photographs, I raised the ISO to 320-500 depending on the available light and I varied the aperture from F/9 to F/11 so I get a larger depth of field. Using F/2.8 was extremely difficult because the slightest of movements threw off the focus of the photograph. At least with the larger apertures, there is more breathing room.

[Shadowman]

Paul,

The first photo is a bit out of focus but you can see the determination (or my imagining) on the insects face as it approaches the flower.

[Geoff F]

Well your settings are about right but with a 5D and a 100 mm lens you need to either get really close or crop tighter, which I would suggest might be worth considering with these images. I mostly work between F11 and F14 when there is sufficient light, although at ISO 800 I do sometimes get unacceptably noisy photos which are only suitable for insect identification.

Don't worry too much about exact subject position or rule of thirds etc with macro. It is more a case of making the most, or reducing the worst, of whatever background is unavoidably there.

Rotation, or partial rotation, before cropping can also have a big impact on the final result.

Any macro scenes which involve white and black, or very dark, subjects is an exposure nightmare; but your exposure has worked well with these difficult subjects.

For macro work, I use a 40D (crop sensor) with a 180 mm lens and still often wish I could get a larger image. Particularly when struggling to move my tripod through the undergrowth.