Bugs !

[Gunngee]

Here are a couple of shots taken with my macro, hope you like them.

In the spotlight.

Beauty and the beast?

Spidy

 

[kaivalagi]

What lens and body are you using?

Nice subjects...have you tried getting the shutter speed down and reducing the aperture a little to get more depth of field? I struggled getting good depth of field with fish shots, but taking pics outside should enable you to get more light and better depth of field

I am fairly new to SLR photography but I think you'll be really pleased with the results if you give this a go

I bought a super zoom recently so have neglected trying the macro stuff for a while, got a lovely Sigma 150-500mm

I saved for a long time to get that...

 

[Gunngee]

What lens and body are you using?

Nice subjects...have you tried getting the shutter speed down and reducing the aperture a little to get more depth of field? I struggled getting good depth of field with fish shots, but taking pics outside should enable you to get more light and better depth of field

I am fairly new to SLR photography but I think you'll be really pleased with the results if you give this a go

I bought a super zoom recently so have neglected trying the macro stuff for a while, got a lovely Sigma 150-500mm

I saved for a long time to get that...

The body is a Sony A-200 with a sigma macro 2-8? does that make sense? I'm learning. My wife got me hooked on photography and she's not here right now to tell me what the exact lense is. It is macro specific though.

 

[kaivalagi]

What lens and body are you using?

Nice subjects...have you tried getting the shutter speed down and reducing the aperture a little to get more depth of field? I struggled getting good depth of field with fish shots, but taking pics outside should enable you to get more light and better depth of field

I am fairly new to SLR photography but I think you'll be really pleased with the results if you give this a go

I bought a super zoom recently so have neglected trying the macro stuff for a while, got a lovely Sigma 150-500mm

I saved for a long time to get that...

The body is a Sony A-200 with a sigma macro 2-8? does that make sense? I'm learning. My wife got me hooked on photography and she's not here right now to tell me what the exact lense is. It is macro specific though.

The 2.8 will probably be the lowest f-stop it can handle i.e. how wide the aperture can go...2.8 is nice What length is it though, 50mm? 100mm?



I have a 100mm Tokina, quite cheap (for a macro) and not as good a brand as Canon/Sigma/Nikon etc in most peoples opinion, but it truly is a great macro lens, I can't fault it, I can only fault me!


So you've got hooked! Welcome to the club...it's much like fish keeping in some ways, it can be simple to do, but to do it properly you need to read and read and it takes a good deal of time to become a master at it. Neither of the 2 hobbies are mastered by me for certain, but it's good that there is a lot to learn, it keeps the hobbies alive doesn't it
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[font="arial]Have a go at taking pics of your fish, you'll need a tripod and probably need to use a low shutter speed. I found around 1/15th of a second is about right if the tank lighting is standard stuff. With that slow shutter you need to time the snaps just right, otherwise everything is blurred as the fish don't like to stay still for long. You could up the shutter speed but you'd need to drop the ISO rating and then you'd get grainier pics...[/font]
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[font="arial]I can go on too much so I'll stop there, have fun and most importantly try varying all the settings to see what happens, it's the best way to learn [/font]

 

[chrisbassist]

to be completely honest, I think the second and third pics would look nicer without the "bug". they'd then make nice macro shots of the flower.

For the bugs, try and get in closer, the bigger the bug is in the pic the better really.

and the last pic, I'm not sure where I should be looking. the spider is far too close to the edge of the frame, try getting it closer to the rule of thirds, also, getting a shot where you can see the legs and stuff.

other than that, they're nciely in focus, great colour, and nice quality, no grain or anything, very nice. it's not very visible in the first 3, but it looks like you may have some fringing going on. can be caused by the coating on the lens not being quite good enough, but decent lenses are ***** expensive.

 

[Gunngee]

to be completely honest, I think the second and third pics would look nicer without the "bug". they'd then make nice macro shots of the flower.

For the bugs, try and get in closer, the bigger the bug is in the pic the better really.

and the last pic, I'm not sure where I should be looking. the spider is far too close to the edge of the frame, try getting it closer to the rule of thirds, also, getting a shot where you can see the legs and stuff.

other than that, they're nciely in focus, great colour, and nice quality, no grain or anything, very nice. it's not very visible in the first 3, but it looks like you may have some fringing going on. can be caused by the coating on the lens not being quite good enough, but decent lenses are ***** expensive.

Like my previous post states, I am a beginner and still and will be forever learning. The picture with the spider in it was hard. That was as close as I could get to that flower due to obstacles in front of me. Also every time I moved the spider would disappear to the back side of the flower then I would have to pursuade him back out to the front side. That picture was the best one that I got. I may try to crop it differently so he is more of the focal point of the picture though. I have LOTS of flower shots of just flowers, maybe I'll post those in here as well once I get some re-sized. Thanks for the feed back, I appreciate it.

 

[Gunngee]

What length is it though, 50mm? 100mm?

I wasn't sure so I snapped some pics of it with my point and shoot.

 

[kaivalagi]

[font="Arial][color="#000000"]Sigma 90mm F2.8 AF Macro - nice lens [/color] [/font]
[font="Arial][font="Verdana"]Should be good for portraits too, h[/font][/font]ave fun...

 

[chrisbassist]

Cool,

I too will be forever learning, I've had my cam for about 2 years now, and had a bridge before that, then got fed up with the stupid way of changing settings.

I know what you mean about your subject moving, The one time i tried taking photos of butterflys and dragonflys i gave up, didn't have time to focus properly and shoot before they were gone.

and as I said, just my opinions, I just think you should TRY and get closer, thankfully my 70-300mm lens has a macro setting at it's longer lengths.

 

[Gunngee]

Cool,

I too will be forever learning, I've had my cam for about 2 years now, and had a bridge before that, then got fed up with the stupid way of changing settings.

I know what you mean about your subject moving, The one time i tried taking photos of butterflys and dragonflys i gave up, didn't have time to focus properly and shoot before they were gone.

and as I said, just my opinions, I just think you should TRY and get closer, thankfully my 70-300mm lens has a macro setting at it's longer lengths.

I lucked out really. When my wife and I first started dating she had a Minolta Maxum 9si with tons of lenses. I had my little Nikon coolpix point and shoot. The first boxing day sale that we were together she bought the Sony A-100 and I started playing with the Minolta. After about a year it was costing me too much money in developing so we decided it was time for me to go buy my Sony. I also got mine on a boxing day sale. The nice thing about it is all the Minolta lenses fit the Sony. The only thing that didn't work was the doubler but strangely enuf, the 1.4 multiplier works fine.

 

[Gunngee]

Trying something out here I don't know if this will work please let me know either way thanks.
My link
they are all re-sized down to 640X180. The full sized image looks way better.

 

[kaivalagi]

When I was looking for a DSLR I was so close to getting a Sony Alpha, because of the old minolta compatibility (good / cheap second hand lenses) and the image stabilization in the body too.

However I went for a Canon 450D in the end, can't complain...I think once you get past a certain price point it's more about the lens quality and not the body, although I wouldn't say no to a 7D

The link works fine, a nice variety of pics there, where did you spy those owls...cool stuff.

I really ought to put all my pics up onto flickr/photobucket...just the fish right now, see the slideshow link in my sig below (not great pics, some I like though). Still figuring out how to make best use of the macro...

 

[chrisbassist]

i'd still like a 1Ds but maybe i'd settle for a 5D

 

[kaivalagi]

i'd still like a 1Ds but maybe i'd settle for a 5D

Get saving then lol

You a canon man too then?

I've spent enough on lens for canon now that I'll never go for anything else now, too much to lose

edit: Just upload some pics I took using the super zoom for the first time at Salhouse Broad, wasn't great as spring hadsn't really arrived yet so not much life to snap. I'm still getting to grips with what the best light/ISO settings are for the lens. Some shots are nice and crisp, other are a little way off...but I plan on visiting a different norfolk broad each weekend...Filby broad is next I hope...the Salhouse broad album is here: http/s781.photobucket.com/albums/yy91/kaivalagi/Norfolk%20Broads/Salhouse%20Broad/

Cheers

 

[chrisbassist]

to my eye the composition is a little off on most of those... with things being a little too central in the frame, and in this one, i think the bird should be the other side, so it's looking across the length of the shot...

EDIT: this one could probably be improved with cropping most of the right hand side off (end edit)

again, only my opinion, and trust me, I'm a lot worse when i'm looking at my own photo's. I'll look through the camera, and delete at least half because of composition, exposure or blur, then i'll get them on the comp, delete a few more,

by the time i'm done i'm lucky if i've got 10 out of every 500 taken.

and if I could afford one then i'd def be a canon man, at the moment i've only got a nikon d40. but i'd love a decent canon, purely because I love their high end lenses. some of the best lenses on the market I think. with the camera itself, I don't see a real difference between nikon or canon, but with lenses, once you get past all the standard stuff, canon has the best. theres a couple of pics in my "pictures from yesterday" thread somewhere under this one. a leopard, meerkat, etc.