A few pics with my new `baby` - Be Gentle with me!!

Entai · 6 Jun 2007 at 11:14

Hi all,

Well Mr postman delivered my new `baby` a couple of days ago, so I thought I would nip out into the garden and get a few quick ones in.

The baby in question is a shiny new Sigma 70-200 F2.8 APO EX DG Macro HSM.

This is the first time I have tried macro, so as I say please be gentle with me, any and all C & C more than welcome as always.

A.N.Other · 6 Jun 2007 at 11:18

The first of those it great - love it. I can't really work out where the focus is in the second, though :confused:

. I think it's the wing in the background, which has made the rest of it a bit OOF.

Wouldn't mind one of those lenses, though. How close do they focus in macro? If I'm realistic, though, my next lens will probably be the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS

Entai · 6 Jun 2007 at 11:25

Hi, cheers for the quick reply.

The little blighter was literally only there for a moment, so I was very surprised I caught him at all, I guess it was a bit of luck even his wing was in focus really

.

The minimum focusing distance seems to be about a metre give or take a bit, am looking to get a teleconverter so that I do not have to crop as much to get the tight detail, as apparently the TC will not alter the focusing distance while also magnifying.

Aod · 7 Jun 2007 at 01:08

a meter? wow. i wouldn't really consider that much of a macro lens tbh.

pretty good shots though!

divine` · 7 Jun 2007 at 01:37

Aod said:
a meter? wow. i wouldn't really consider that much of a macro lens tbh.

pretty good shots though!

Don't forget the length is 200m, so at a metre the magnification ratio will probably still be fairly good, though I can't see it being 1:1

edit
"Minimum focusing distance of 100cm, maximum magnification of 1:3.5." ...even the cheapy 70-300 manages 1:2. Maybe it's not so good then :/

Entai · 7 Jun 2007 at 07:07

The previous version of this lens, the non macro version, had trouble focusing on anything nearer than around two metres, so I guess it is an improvement on that.

But anyway, I did not buy this lens for it's "macro" capabilities, I bought it for the f2.8 across the entire focal range, as I do a lot of swimming shots in pretty bad lighting, the big apperture is a main priority, it is just that they say "macro" on the lens so I thought I would have a play with it's capabilities, and was not disapointed.

Aod · 7 Jun 2007 at 12:01

2.8 across the entire focal range IS a good reason to buy a lens

<edit> on that last shot, it looks like you're getting a LOT of CA. how much has the image been enlarged/enhanced?

Entai · 7 Jun 2007 at 15:42

I take it by " a lot of CA" you mean the blue edges to the leaves?

I was trying to work out what that was.

As to what I did to the pic, you are right, it is quite heavily cropped and enlarged, in reality the flower is only about 1-2 cm across, also I have processed it with the "Digital Camera Noise Removal" tool in Paintshop Pro XI, along with a tweak to saturation and contratst levels, so I guess somewhere along the way I have messed up something. I am still very new to post processing and have an awful lot to learn.

I am at work now so don't have acess to the original, I will post that later so you can see the differences and give me an idea of where I may have gone wrong. The original file is in RAW so is about 6meg IIRC, how would I go about posting that? Would I just host the original on my webspace and post a link to it here? or is there a compresion method that would not loose to much detail, but get a reasonable file size?

Sorry for all the questions, as I said I am still learning so be kind.

GeX · 7 Jun 2007 at 20:27

i can't offer much C&C (newbie myself) but i do like that first one. In particular this bit:

Aod · 8 Jun 2007 at 00:44

Entai said:
I take it by " a lot of CA" you mean the blue edges to the leaves?

I was trying to work out what that was.
Sorry for all the questions, as I said I am still learning so be kind.

i do indeed mean the blue edges. CA stands for Chromatic Aberration which is where the shorter wavelengths aren't focussed by the glass as well as the longer wavelengths. this causes the purple fringing.

the only way to get rid of it is to spend more on a lens because more money = better glass

anyway, if thats enlarged then don't worry about it, it should be manageable.

<edit> links for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_fringing