Some macro shots
 

My macro lens is probably one of the best purchases I've ever made. I don't regret one minute having spent money on a decent one. After owning it for 6 months I'm finally mastering the beast; on orchids, insects, and other things. I mostly do insects because of my work. All are shot handheld, no flash. This Christmas I think I'll offer myself a tripod (and some ND grad filters for a different lens, for landscape photos!), and after that I'll decide what I want in terms of flash. What an expensive hobby! :biggrin:

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have see all of these before...

My masdie Selphi Orion
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5491/1...786266959b.jpg

Some insects, and a spider!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8266/8...1e5ce79156.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3708/1...03dd37d26b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5473/1...452542b088.jpg

5th instar Pieris brassicae (a species I work with)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3749/1...ee97244f96.jpg

Same caterpillars, as freshly hatched first instars in our lab colony. To give you an idea, the eggs are about 2mm tall.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/1...33759a1d4f.jpg

Coccinella septempunctata larva, feeding on Brevicoryne brassicae aphids (another insect I work with)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3745/1...0bc34a1164.jpg

Coccinella septempunctata
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5514/1...a5c85cb0f5.jpg


Some little tiny mushrooms (the dead pine needle in front of one gives an idea of the size of them)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7393/1...8102878581.jpg

Some more small mushrooms:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7450/1...7d68b93ee3.jpg

Absolutely bloody awesome. As much as I love all the blooms and bugs, my favorite is the first picture of the tiny mushrooms, that is just stunning, I love the focus on that picture, the fact only mushrooms are sharp and the rest blurry is exactly what I would love to have on that pic!

Thanks! :)
One of my favorite mushroom photos with this lens is this one, though not a macro since the shroom is quite large...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7357/1...669ae998_c.jpg

Oh, and I didn't mention it, the macro lens is a Tamron 90mm f/2.8

AWESOME!!! I love this mushroom! Poisson as well:-) Amazing colors on that pic!

They are all beautiful. You are getting some gorgeous compositions and shots.

Gorgeous pictures, they look like they belong in a magazine! I especially love the 2nd one (the insect looks like he's posing for you) and the red mushroom.

Wonderful photos! They are just beautiful!

Thanks all! I'm happy to finally get some good photos with it now, during the first months I was getting a lot more bad shots than good ones. Getting most of the insect in focus is hard.

It's a Tamron 90mm f/2.8.
Now how I picked it... with difficulty! I could afford a mid range lens (the really good ones have prices in the 4 digits, or close to it). Because I knew I would do a lot of work with insects I needed something with a good focal distance. Canon has a nice 100mm macro lens. But the price was stretching my budget a bit. Then I discovered the Tamron, and according to most of the reviews I read, the glass is very sharp and very good quality, pretty much equal to the Canon one, but 150€ cheaper!! AND comes with a lens hood. For Canon lenses you need to buy it separately.

And I'm happy with this lens. The AF had a tendency to hunt around a lot, but mostly in lower light conditions (since I shoot handheld I need a bright sunny day anyway). So I do the focus manually in those cases, then use AF just to 'lock in' on the sharpest focus.

I am so impressed! What terrific pictures. I'm getting a camera a lens for Christmas :). I can't wait to try it out. I think I'll try to find a class or two to jump start my new extension of orchid growing. I'll have to learn fast as we going to Costa Rica in January!

Wow! Very impressing photos! Many thanks for the info :)

Excellent photo, Camille. I love the gentle bokeh of the red mushroom! I've used the legendary, 1st generation Tamron SP 90mm/f2.5 macro (52B) more than 20 years ago. It was famous for the tasteful bokeh (probably due to the circular aperture diaphragms).

Wow nice pictures. I have found one of those red mushrooms once, they are very cool and yes poisonous. I love mushroom hunting.

The family of mushrooms against the tree is my favorite. Just magical. Reminds me of college ;)

Great photos Camille!

You are so right, an expensive hobby, worse than Orchids it seems :coverlaugh:

We did the tripod a few years ago, this year hubbie's just ordered himself a proper flash... we've been doing long exposures on the tripod to get the orchid shots till now.

The great shots you get from proper camera/lens is worth it though :)

Wow!! Those are some amazing pictures. It's difficult to get that kind of sharpness without a tripod. Good job. That seems to be an excellent lens. I have an 85 mm Nikkor macro lens and I love it. If I had any experience before buying my lens, I might have gone to the 105 mm macro. It's so much easier to get good photos when you can stand back at a reasonable distance. It also means that you're far enough back that you don't block the available light.

VERY nice images, indeed. If you do lots of insects, consider the Canon MPE 65 mm. Most insects are small (Cocinnella/Adalia septempunctata), so even 1:1 still leaves them small. With the MPE 65 you can get to 5:1, with a 1.4x TC to 7:1, with 2x TC to 10:1. With that lens, though, flash is almost a pre-requisite; I use the MX24 twin macro mostly.

@Tucker: re sharpness handheld, if you remember longest time hand-held = 1/focal length, (so for 90 mm [35 mm/full frame equivalent] = 1/100 or 1/125), then you can get sharp images with proper body support, breathing technique, and slowly depressing shutter. Tripod still helps.
85 mm MicroNikkor? I thought Nikon has 55 and 105 Micros.

I was just looking myself into adding to the macro lenses, and Tamron and Canon are pretty darn close [still can't beat Zeiss]. Had some CC reward points and traded them in for a Canon 180 mm macro :-) Free lens!

Re focus, I have never used AF for macro. Just turn it off permanently, and it will be easier than having to fight AF. If you can, get a matt focusing screen for your body. Using the LCD screen with LiveView (if you have it) is another option. I like it quite a bit, but it only permits placing focal plane. With DOF preview button pressed, often there is too little light coming through.

Interesting, that you are looking into ND grads, rather than doing HDR. I have the Lee sets, and rather use the hard edge than the soft edge. I mainly use them on 4x5" as those chromes do not permit RAW processing ;-) I have used them also for video on my 5D mkii.

Keep up the good work, those are gorgeous! I'll have to wait till about Feb/March for the mushrooms to come out in SoCal.

Very nice pictures, makes me want to get a new camera for Christmas.

Though I say I shoot handheld, it's with all the tricks you mention! I've learned how to use my body as a 'tripod', and press the shutter very slowly while holding my breath... And I try to make use of what's around me, like trees or rocks or even the ground, or my bicycle. I think doing it this way, in combiniation with using a prime lens, makes me think a whole lot more about composition than if I had a tripod that I could easily move around and adjust.

Now as to the filters... I'm not a big fan of heavy post processing, my goal is to learn how to do as much as possible in camera. It also feels more rewarding to me to do it that way. I'm a bit old school I guess. That and also because I have yet to find a good freeware/ low cost HDR software.

A colleague has the Canon MP-E 65mm, and wow is it amazing! The tricky bit is getting the insect models to sit still... Aside from her job as a post-doc, she and 2 other people in our group have a photo business specializing in insect macro photography (since we all work in entomology)

And I've never heard of focusing screens, will have to look it up! Though with the Liveview it's possible to focus quite precisely with the 10x magnification.

All the mushrooms are very cool.

Re composition and tripod, I often hunt for composition freehand, once I found a shot I like, then I get the tripod out. I find with tripod you get even cleaner compositions as you can really examine the shot, without having to worry about holding position. Obviously, what you do works for you. Just my 2c. I learned a lot about examining the camera image from 4x5" [upside down and backwards]. It slows you down but for the better.

I am with you re getting the shot right in camera. You get different looks when using ND grads or doing HDR or heavy RAW adjustments. Occasionally, filters just don't work, and you have to do some processing. Had a rock hole with a light beam through the middle and was shooting 4x5". Did a 3 frame exposure series, then scanned chromes at 500 MB a pop, then sandwiched the three layers with free rotation, then HDRed the aligned frames. Computer was rather challenged.

Don't know about free HDR software, I use PS CS5.5 for pretty much all my imaging needs, except z-stacking (ZereneStacker).

Good luck with your photo job. I'm doing just some stock on the side, but am not happy where things are going. Rather doing low volume private sales than getting ripped off by agency. Again, my 2c. The best approach thus far has been writing photo articles. That actually pays pretty well. Fortunately, my day job take care of the camera expenses. Over the years I've had a bunch of macro lenses. First one was an OM Zuiko 50 mm, then got the OM 90 mm (gorgeous!), also the 80 mm bellows head lens (1:2 - 2:1) with the sliding extension tube (genius design, still miss it), Micronikkor 105, Pentax 100 mm for underwater, Zeiss 100 mm CY, Zeiss 100 mm ZE, Canon MPE 65, and Canon 180 mm is on the way. Also have a Rodenstock 180 mm Apo-Macro-Sironar for 4x5" [ArcaSwiss], which is about a 60 mm equivalent on 35 mm. For >7x I move to stereomicroscope. Did some wide angle reversed on bellows with OM and Contax in the past, but did not get a bellows for the digiSLR anymore. Lens stacking is another approach. Back in Contax times, I stacked a 50 mm 1.4 on a 100 mm macro. It vignetted at infinity on the 100, but at closer focus it worked better. Now with the MPE 65, there is no need for stacking anymore.

Re focusing screens, check out http://www.focusingscreen.com, or Beatie (Beattie Intenscreen Bright Focusing Screens), or KatzEye™ Optics - Custom Focusing Screens. There may be others. If you are more old school, then get one with split image and microprism ring. AF still works with most. Not sure which body you have. I have a Haoda in mine, but Haoda does not seem to exist anymore. LiveView with 5 or 10x works quite well, indeed.

It's not my photo job, it's my colleagues'. I'm too much of a newbie to photography to even consider having it as a side job. Just a hobby for me!