Lightbox/macro advice

[PaulStat]

Soo I spent some time this evening making myself a lightbox out of cereal boxes (I'm really bad at craft work!). Anyway I decided to use the 70-300 to get a macro of my snap dragon. This is the best attempt, straight from the camera unmodified

And this is how I had it set up. I had the camera + flash in commander mode

Now admittedly the camera is on auto white balance so I presume that's why the colour is off. Is it underexposed? Also how am I supposed to use this lens for macro work? I found it very very tricky to get focus, and it wouldn't auto focus at all!

 

[denyerec]

Autofocus for maco is usually not good, you'll find that manual focus is much more reliable. Also I don't think the 70-300 is really a macro lens, despite the enthusiasm of the manufacturer advertising it as such

To get the whites white, take a custom whitebalance reading under whatever lights you're using.

Did you have two flashes in play here or just one? If it's just one then you'll struggle to get the BG white and adequately illuminate the subject, because the subject is closer to the flash it'll always blow out first...

... unless you REALLY carefully feather the flash. The light from the flash is a cone, and it's weaker around the edges. If you aim the edge of the flash cone at the target and the hot centre spot on the backdrop (It'll take a lot of mucking about) you might be able to get the background to come up a stop or so over the subject, though the position of the light might not work out.

 

[PaulStat]

just the one flash, you can see the SB-600 front right just in front of the box, I would have thought that would have been plenty of light with the lamp and the flash being directly infront of the box?

 

[ChazHurst]

Whenever I decided to do proper macro I go with my 50mm or 70-300mm (at 70mm) and my trusty kenko macro tubes. That lets me get right up close.

I also use a homebrew softbox (made with some cardboard and baking paper) in front of my flash. This gives me a nice even light without many harsh edges. A second light would be ideal to keep the backing better lit though... More expense!

 

[PaulStat]

I found I couldn't actually get any closer than that, if I moved the camera closer then focussing was impossible.

 

[MichaelHo]

Good attempt, I think you need to tweak the white balancing to clear the backdrop and get the colours out more. Unless you have a pro lens and good camera shots hardly come out perfect straight off.

As others have said, manual focus would be better, in this photo it's hard to see what you were focusing on.

 

[Wedge]

Good attempt Paul, but for me there are only 2 ways to get good 'macro' photograph's.

1. 50mm Prime lens with extension tubes (this is how i started)
2. Dedicated Macro lens (i now use a Tamron 90mm F/2.8, can be bought for a little over £250)

Like has been said above, the lens you are using isnt really a 'marco' lens par-say.

Here are a couple of my recent shots with macro lens catching water drops, so you can see the difference in focus/detail.