Crit - Closeup/Macro *No Judges*
- Thread starter Mobius 1
- Start date
1) Too much going on in the bottom left of the frame and not enough detail or light on the bee. There's also a distinct lact of creative DOF which is the sole reason for macro photography in my opinion. A boring photo which is doing nothing for me.
2) Creative DOF in evidence but a really dull photo of a boring subject. Texture, shape, colour and form do absolutely nothing for me.
Mix the technique of 2 with the subject of 1 and you might have a decent shot. As it is I'm afraid you've got two poor efforts there. On this evidence I'd stick with your current shot.
2) Creative DOF in evidence but a really dull photo of a boring subject. Texture, shape, colour and form do absolutely nothing for me.
Mix the technique of 2 with the subject of 1 and you might have a decent shot. As it is I'm afraid you've got two poor efforts there. On this evidence I'd stick with your current shot.
Well a macro lens will get you the 1:1 reproduction which really makes for quality macro photography, but it's not essential. With the right subject, lighting and DOF you'll be able to produce a shot which ticks all the right boxes with your current lens.
What sort of subjects are you in to? Find something you enjoy and then think of how to photography it - work out the angles, focal point, framing and lighting before you start and always go in with a plan of action.
What sort of subjects are you in to? Find something you enjoy and then think of how to photography it - work out the angles, focal point, framing and lighting before you start and always go in with a plan of action.
glitch said:
thanks for the tips. i want to get into wildlife, but at the moment, due to lack of funds after buying a house i cant really afford a good zooming lens. but im saving for one. I like the look of the sigma 300mm APO. but your input means a lot to me and i must put more effort into my shots, cheers
My pleasure.
When I'm approaching my flower macro shots I think of four main things.
1. Point of focus.
What part of the flower is going to be the focal point and why? Should it be the obvious part (the centre) or something more unusual (stamen, petal, stem, etc)?
2. DOF.
Now I've picked my focal point, how am I going to make that stand out from the surrounding parts? Is it going to be the only sharp bit of the shot or is it going to be part of a section in focus? And what about the focal plain? Where do I need to be shooting from to get the DOF I desire?
3. Lighting.
If I'm using natural light, what's going to be the best time of day to get the result I want? Do I need a reflector or a diffuser? Will I need any accessories? If I'm shooting indoors, how will I set my kit up for the shot?
4. Framing.
Now I know what to focus on, what DOF I want to achieve and when I'll be taking the shot, I'll think about how to fill the frame with my subject matter. Luckily my viewfinder offers 96% (or whatever) coverage so I can plan ahead, but I might not necessarily be going for a 3:2 ratio - I could be going for a square crop and need to frame accordingly.
And once I've done all that, I might get lucky and produce something like this:
When I'm approaching my flower macro shots I think of four main things.
1. Point of focus.
What part of the flower is going to be the focal point and why? Should it be the obvious part (the centre) or something more unusual (stamen, petal, stem, etc)?
2. DOF.
Now I've picked my focal point, how am I going to make that stand out from the surrounding parts? Is it going to be the only sharp bit of the shot or is it going to be part of a section in focus? And what about the focal plain? Where do I need to be shooting from to get the DOF I desire?
3. Lighting.
If I'm using natural light, what's going to be the best time of day to get the result I want? Do I need a reflector or a diffuser? Will I need any accessories? If I'm shooting indoors, how will I set my kit up for the shot?
4. Framing.
Now I know what to focus on, what DOF I want to achieve and when I'll be taking the shot, I'll think about how to fill the frame with my subject matter. Luckily my viewfinder offers 96% (or whatever) coverage so I can plan ahead, but I might not necessarily be going for a 3:2 ratio - I could be going for a square crop and need to frame accordingly.
And once I've done all that, I might get lucky and produce something like this:
That would be an orchid - not sure of the variety but it's one of the 10 I've got at home. I could find out if you're really interested, but I'd imagine orchid will be enough for you to go on!
That was shot on a 20D with a Canon 100mm Macro lens - so effectively a 160mm lens once you take the 1.6x focal crop into account. You're looking at about £300 for the lens, depending on where you shop.
However, that could equally be a crop from a much larger image. If you think the 20D pumps out at 3504 x 2336 pixels and that's 424 x 600, you only really need about 20% of the original shot to get that image. You might struggle with the image quality as a result but you don't necessarily need a dedicated macro lens to get pictures like that orchid.
EDIT: Sorry, I should have said that my comments above related to posting the pictures on the internet - where size and resolution don't really matter. Obviously if you cropped the picture to that size you'd be screwed if you wanted to print it off!
That was shot on a 20D with a Canon 100mm Macro lens - so effectively a 160mm lens once you take the 1.6x focal crop into account. You're looking at about £300 for the lens, depending on where you shop.
However, that could equally be a crop from a much larger image. If you think the 20D pumps out at 3504 x 2336 pixels and that's 424 x 600, you only really need about 20% of the original shot to get that image. You might struggle with the image quality as a result but you don't necessarily need a dedicated macro lens to get pictures like that orchid.
EDIT: Sorry, I should have said that my comments above related to posting the pictures on the internet - where size and resolution don't really matter. Obviously if you cropped the picture to that size you'd be screwed if you wanted to print it off!
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