Help with Macro. It is driving me nuts.....

[FM Arouet666]

Macro is much harder than I thought. I got home early today and went to explore with my old Nikon 990, it has a Macro mode. Sadly, I don't have a Macro lens for my Canon 10D. Anyway, spent a few hours shooting. Any tips? Some observations...

Lighting is important, very important. Shooting close up, you need adequate light, I thought "tiny objects with candle light, would be cool." Um, no, you can see a damn thing.

Background is important, I started to shoot little objects against white paper to get an effect, some where ok, most looked overly staged.

Is the purpose of Macro to capture a pic with a subject that is not immediately evident to the viewer? I agree, these are interesting, but what about shooting a pic which is obvious, but still interesting? A few shots, glad the wife didn't catch me shooting the tacs on her board, she is a psychiatrist and I am sure medication or electroshock would be the treatment. As hard as Macro is, It is fun to shoot. I caved and ordered the Canon Telephoto EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Auto focus lens. Hope it gets here in time.......

'Clarity'

'The Screw'

'Ring'

[F.Gordon]

1. Is your wife expensive?

I just spent some time this eve sticking small pieces of colored plastic strips into a chunk of styrofoam. Then used a small battery powered halogen lamp to center light it. It came of very abstract... which I like but ....
:crazy:

I really like unity and screw... because they are abstract as well. I have no idea what constitutes a "good" macro. Should it be something people recognize? Is abstract acceptable? Can't help ya'... cause I'm having the same "problem".... even though... I think what you're coming up with is very good.

You're goin' love the 100mm macro. Did you order the hood?

[FM Arouet666]

2. Cheap, but you have to be a geriatric....

Her specialty.;) Abstract is what I am drawn too, ordinary objects shot in interesting settings. Amazing the emotion, the thought, that can be expressed in a single abstract photo. Wish I had a better voice, but thank you for the kind words.

Yes, I got the hood, the filters, and the nice little leather case; which is free with the L series lenses! :mad:

Macro is fun, you start looking at things which you never considered before. Light, angle, perspective, color, are all magnified in importance. A real challenge. Now, If I could just get this bug to point his arse at me, I would be set....... :evilgrin:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. Driving you nuts? Looks like you have it

under control to me.

[priller]

4. Those look great

I especially like the corkscrew. And I agree with you about abstract, I tend to like them also. Here's one I made a while back.




That's a macro shot of a slit of light (from the window shade) refracting through an empty tequila bottle. Don't know what possessed me to do such a thing (it wasn't the tequila!).

[alkaline9]

6. very cool idea... i see it now, but wouldn't have had a clue

It kinda looks like an abstract wave curling and crashing on some deserted shore. I'm gonna have to try this technique with an empty bottle... anyone wanna help me get to the bottom of one? :D

[TahitiNut]

5. "driving me nuts"?? (cough)

Let's not infer that's a bad thing. People should be so lucky! :silly:

[alkaline9]

7. you've picked excellent subjects for these macro shots

I am dazzled by your camera's ability to focus so sharply on the point of the corkscrew! Does it use auto focus? I wish my Kodak digital was better at macro shots, but its not terrible. I think it has an F2.8 macro setting with no zoom, but only an F3.2 thru F3.7 if I use the telephoto. I can get pretty close with no zoom and the auto focus still works, but if I try to telephoto the shot it is a LOT harder to get a closeup and still focus.

I'm still learning about aperture settings. I know I can shoot decent detail macro shots at F2.8 and decent shots of the moon telephoto'd at F8.0.

What kind of options/settings does your macro camera have? Will that macro lens you purchased give a lot more flexibility?

[FM Arouet666]

11. The shots are with a Nikon 990

All done with the auto focus, which was a pain. I set the AF in manual and choose a bracket on the viewer to fix the point on the objects I wanted in focus. The cork screw was hard, the camera kept trying to focus in locations I did not want. The camera has a Macro setting which is pretty easy to use.

I think a macro lens for my SLR will be easier to use.

[Boo_Radley]

8. I think the point . . .

. . . is just an interesting photo that doesn't include a whole scene. A landscape may be interesting, but would it still be interesting if it weren't . . . a landscape? The macro takes some object out of it's environment, completely disregards, and even throws away, it's surroundings, and only shows that object. Usually an object with no real value, a thumb tack or a cork screw here, and shows it as color, form and composition.

Like, you regularly see macro photography without thinking, "Hey, that's macro photography," if you look at adds for jewelry. But that's jewelery. It's interesting in itself, and the photo is conveying important information (usually, "Don't let your wife see this, or you'll be out of money and you can't get that new lense you want.") The macro is far more abstract, even if you can see the whole item -- the whole thumbtack, the whole corkscrew, the whole bug's ass -- because it's not an item of interest and value in and of itself.

Like, in the hypothetical landscape, you see the whole landscape. Now take a tree out of that. Now take a single chunk of bark out of that, and look at it without considering it's place in the world. Just that bark (or bug's ass) in and of itself. Does it have any aesthetic value? Does if have rich tones? Does it have interesting lines? Does it have shadow and light and form and color and composure? If so, shoot it. But ONLY it. Not the whole landscape. Not the item in it's place. Isolate it and look at it as pure form. Even if you do see the whole object, like that thumbtack, what's different about it is that it doesn't actually convey any useful information. "Oh, a thumbtack." You're not going to write home to mom about that. Take something of similar size, but more important alone, like a diamond ring, and you don't get the same thing. It's a picture of a diamond ring, not a picture of color, shape, composition, light, shadow, form, mood.

Or so goes my take on it. Your mileage may vary.

[F.Gordon]

9. Excellent dialogue

:thumbsup:

What I've been struggling with is takin' a snap of something that doesn't allow you to know immediately what it is because the way I try to snap it ... comes off as something else. Use an object (or objects) that allows me create a completely different image. My success rate? Not so good...have one or two that are in my "ummm..... maybe" folder.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. My feeble attempts...

This is as close as I can get with the Canon without a macro lens. I used the 17-85 here. Looks good enough to eat, huh?



I can get pretty close with the Mavica and the little magnifying filter thingies. The quality isn't as good, and you can still tell what this stuff is, but I may have to just go with something along these lines, although I really like the top one better esthetically.



I see a macro lens in my future.

[intheflow]

12. Hardly feeble.

That first one is better by far. Trust you aesthetic intuition! I think the first one could win a macro/close-up contest.

And don't dis those magnifying filters! All I use is one of those magnifying filters. That's close enough, imo. How close do you have to be to appreciate a smaller world? And who can afford all those real lenses, anyway? :crazy:

[Blue_In_AK]

13. Thanks, ITF...

I didn't use any kind of magnification filter on the first picture - I was just close up with the lens all the way out. The magnifiers were on the old Mavica. I do like the Canon picture better, though, so I think that's the one I'll use for the contest even though it's not as close in. I still think it qualifies. It's not a landscape, anyway. ;)

[Fovea]

14. Realpolitk's Macro theory

First principal -- the nearest object should ideally be in sharpest focus.

Second principal -- a lot of defocused objects in front of the focal plane is usually distracting.

Third principal -- the first two principals can be violated if there is a highly interesting object isolated in the focal plane.

Fourth principal -- strive to keep all of the focual object in focus. Or failing that, use a DoF that radically defocuses everything but the key element(s)

These are not hard and fast rules, but most of the macro shots I like conform to them.

Just a thought.