woodland sun

[sharon]

I am an absolute newbie having got my camera for my birthday last weekend (a sony a200), and I would love any feedback. i would really like to get into macro photography i.e insects etc, any advice would be much appreciated (lenses, composition etc). Thankyou

[crisscross]

for bugs, first read, learn and probably reread the tutorial on DOF:
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...h-of-field.htm
you may also find this and related threads on another v.friendly forum instructive:
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...hread.php?t=32

My own pennyworth is that you need to choose your lens very carefully having decided, if you can, whether you are eventually going to end up an addict/perfectionist, or just have some fun.

Dedicated macro lenses undoubtedly give the very best results, probably the more expensive the better, but there is one cheat system to consider aswell, which is using a close-up ring. I use a Canon 500D ring on the front of my tele lens (the thread dia is all that matters, not the make or mount) and recommend a good one as there are also £5 ones which are not too clever. This way also avoids lens-changing.

But the real skill is fathoming and mastering getting enough DOF to do the whole bug, as when it is filling the frame, the DOF is small.

Chris
Frame 1 taken with close-up ring on tele-lens, losing DOF on right wing, but still sharper than Frame 2 using 18-135 kit lens but in better light
URLs instead of attachments
http://www.pbase.com/image/105659532
http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/image/104601438

[sharon]

Hi Chris . Thankyou for that. Im new to this site this morning. How do I view ur attached thumbnails as there are none visible in the strip?

[crisscross]

Hi Chris . Thankyou for that. Im new to this site this morning. How do I view ur attached thumbnails as there are none visible in the strip?

They seem to be there to me but I know these forum attachments are fickle, so an alternative route
http://www.pbase.com/image/105659532
http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/image/104601438

PS for all photo forums it is best to use either Safari or Firefox 3 as web browsers. Safari has built-in colour profiling and behaves like IE, , in dragging applications like Adobe Reader into its frame so progressively losing screen area and settings. FF needs add-on Colour management ( and ad-block while you are at it) but thereafter behaves couthly