A dragonfly from a recent post is somewhere down the pages..that is why this post is done now. I call this Macro level 2.0, assuming some of you are like melol, having taken a bunch of macro shots and screwed up a large part of them! I hope some of the macro graduate students and experts will chime in to this thread. A few Macro 2.0 thoughts. Please correct if incorrect! Depth of Field is very tricky and even high aperture(higher number) only change the range slightly, no dramatic increase of depth of field here. I say this with a point of view of focusing about 6 inches from the object. Very shallow depth of field. High Aperture means slower shutter speed(unless you opt to higher ISO) and with some of these subjects, speed is needed as is a steady hand if tripod is not appropriate. Light is vital! This affects both aperture and shutter speed if using aperture mode in digital and not total manual. I suggest using the in camera allowance for upping of lowering the 1/3 or stop increments to find a way to beat highlights and allow enough light without altering shutter speed. Macro mode in some digitals means center, closest subject focus. This mode may also increase color saturation. This is to play with. I dont use the macro mode and take the 50mm lens and try to get right on generally with aperture priority. You dont need the entire object in focus! This is said because the human focus on the image may not require it. A recent example is the Enmos front view of a dragonfly face. The head and even the cells of the eyes are wonderfully clear. This was the intent of the image. The wings? Only a bit further back the wings are blurred, hopelessly beyond even the circle of confusion. But in this wonderful image, the face IS the image and totally appropriate. Check your eyes! Manual focus is a good way to go in my level 2.0 thoughts(no acceptance to graduate school yet!). I wear glasses and these are trifocals. I found my self using different parts of the glasses when doing manual focus..big mistake. So, now I am trained to look for the focus light in the viewfinder and have adjusted my hold to focus only through the accurate part of my eyeglasses. This could be a prob with manual focus that will go unnoticed except for fuzzy images..and what happened to that one! Any ideas will be appreciated.

Hi Tom, I don't feel qualified to be an expert at this time on Macros, but here are two link you should check out on depth of field... http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/950/depth-of-field.html and http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html Other than that I always use flash to freeze my macro images. Depending amount of illumination required. I think strobes are upwards of 1/3000 of a second can't remember might even be as high as 12,000. If you can't afford a flash ring, or twin lites I have a cheap solution. Let me know:} And no I'm not selling anything just sharing info in peace and cooperation.

Ryno, I have considered a flash ring. Since getting a regiular strobe for the cam, another purchase like that is long into the future. Feel free to IM me if you want to. Thanks for the imput! I truly do like peace and cooperaqtion...I sort of grew up in an age that believed in that. Not a bad idea at all, hard sell today except to the down and out. Too bad. Thanks again. Tom.

Hi Tom, This is an old post in my gallery that might be of use:}

I wanted to share this with all the photographers here at Renderosity.
I really didn't want to spend $300 plus dollars on a flash ring, so I tried a
lot of different ways to light my macro shots. I used white board, mirrors, and
hand holding my flash with various poor results not to mention the time
involved in setting up the shot. Then it came to me fiber optics. This is my
first proto type with very inexpensive cable, and the results are fantastic.
All for a total investment of $11.40! I will be happy to go into detail about
the construction, and materials with anyone who needs help, just send me a
message. My next few posts will be examples of how well it works. In
cooperation, jim

Sheeezzzz...looks like the Borg...but with some background in similar stuff I see the point very well. Thanks.

Where did you get that cable...? Will any kind of black tubing work?

Looks good, interesting set up. I for one am interested

dB.. that isn't tubing.. that's fiber optic cable. A vital difference if you want to transport light :)

Yikes, what a contraption there Jim!! I too am finding it vital to use a flash. Without one my DoF is way to shallow, or its so dark that even Photoshopping it cant save the image. I know exactly what you mean Tom!! The Dragonfly I got in my gallery I only managed because it was to ill to move! And I could set up a 0.6" shot with ease - I still used flash though to add highlights to its eyes :P its very very tricky - which I think makes it more rewarding when you get a good shot :)

I have a DOF calculator on my PDA and it seems that the closer the focus, the shallower the DOF. Taking a picture of a mountain can yield miles of sharp detail whereas taking a macro of a flower can yield inches, if that. Without a macro lense I find I can actually make a subject larger with my 300mm telephoto. I have to stand five feet farther away but the subject is actually bigger than with my standard lense.

Dear TobinLam, I have also used a telephoto for close-up shots. Generally I can get a better image size for printing, etc., with the macro lens but the telephoto does have certain value here...not true macro I believe but close-up..and for me, often quite a clean image.

DOF changes little with f/ in close macro shots; oh it does change but at close focus the increase with small opening is not dramatic by any means. I calculated for one setting I used from f/5 to f/22 and the increase in DOF was in small parts of and inch, just a few millimeters. Critical focus on the prime "visual" aspect of the image means more to me now having messed up by not being critical of the very spot I wanted focus to be.

For an "entire bug" of large bug type, I have to back off to get enough DOF for the entire bug. That is what I am working on doing now and appreciating when composing the pic in the first place.

This picture was taken a bit further off than the failed tries, using 50mm macro lens(75mm in my digital). Still, I had trouble with shutter speed and steadiness with tripodless shots in prevaling light..it was stil pretty bright but not for this!(00psies! the date is 2005, July 10 I think, not 2004 as the text on image says.)

Message edited on: 07/12/2005 20:46

Hi Thomas, i agree with you on all but the the point you made about using the macro mode. Well actually i cant disagree since i dont have an alternative lol But the macro mode on my cam seems to do a great job though. The dof IS really shallow in macro, the closer the shallower. The dragon pic was shot from a distance of 1.2 inches or so from the dragon. Thats why i got the shallow dof :o) I never use flash, i think it makes the pic look unnatural. Specs. of the dragon shot are: 27.3 mm focal length; 1/195.4 sec; f/4.1 ...i used the auto-mode. Autofocus as well. Have a great day !! :o) Jeroen

How do you get 1.2 inches away!? If I get 1.2 FEET away they scarper :o Consequently I use a longer lens on my bug shots which I beleive also does not help the DoF issue. I can be farther away - but I seem to need a higher aperture and thus I almost always need to use flash for shots taken at the closest focus :|. Its all compounded with needing a high shutter speed due to using a more wobbly lens! Ahh well, guess I should just be happy with what I've got in the gallery. :|

Jeroen, as for "macro mode", my DSLR adds a plus to saturation for more vivid color. If I don't want that, I don't use that mode. I generally shoot with camera added optomizations turned off. The camera I have use for close shots up until this year is a little Minolta Dimage f100. I must use macro mode for that camera and it does a pretty good job...yes in auto focus or manual focus. Auto focus is quicker and less distrubing to critters than clicking the little "selector" on the back in manual focus. I can't complain about how that little camera performs considering all.