Hello everyone! I've bought my first camera 5 years ago and fell in love with photography. Now after film prices have gone up a decided that I need a cheap DSLR to shoot macro which I also love to do. It's very easy to miss focus in macro photos as you guys now, so using film was not an option. Here are my first some-what successfull photos. Sorry for the quality. They are a little bit downsized. I also want to say thank you for all the useful information and discussions I found on this forum.

[saionu]

Beautiful photo even if the lens is not a top macro. The macro adapter produces images with a special distortion. Congratulations!

[swip]

Have fun with your new toys.

[pres589]

I would imagine that the Hoya macro filters are pretty decent (they're priced like they're actually good and not like my Vivitar branded $18 dollar set to play with). I wonder what they would be like with a lens like the Pentax M 50 f4 Macro or Tamron 90mm f2.5 Macro, both of which do 1:2 enlargements.

Cool pictures, thanks for sharing.

[Poonis5]

I would imagine that the Hoya macro filters are pretty decent (they're priced like they're actually good and not like my Vivitar branded $18 dollar set to play with). I wonder what they would be like with a lens like the Pentax M 50 f4 Macro or Tamron 90mm f2.5 Macro, both of which do 1:2 enlargements.

Cool pictures, thanks for sharing.

Thank you! I just received a Pentax 100mm f/4 Macro lens in great condition. Paid 75$ for it. From what I heard that is a great macro lens.

[35mmfilmfan]

Nice shots. I'm sure others will mention this too, but I usually find my most successful shots are taken using manual focus, camera on tripod and monopod, lens well stopped down for DOF. I sometimes use a ring flash (although I have had indifferent results with the cheaper LED ring lights - I find the short duration of the flash essential to eliminate movement) - this can, however, produce unnaturally dark backgrounds. However you choose to go, good luck and have fun,

[Poonis5]

Nice shots. I'm sure others will mention this too, but I usually find my most successful shots are taken using manual focus, camera on tripod and monopod, lens well stopped down for DOF. I sometimes use a ring flash (although I have had indifferent results with the cheaper LED ring lights - I find the short duration of the flash essential to eliminate movement) - this can, however, produce unnaturally dark backgrounds. However you choose to go, good luck and have fun,

I tried using the camera flash and all photos are basically white. Don't want to sound like a fool, but how do I set the camera in a correct mode with a flash at daytime while using manual lens?

---------- Post added 06-17-21 at 12:17 PM ----------

Just opened this thread on PC and photos looks really blurred. Sorry everyone. I'll attach originals next time.

[Sprky1285]

Looks like you're having fun with it!

[Apet-Sure]

I tried using the camera flash and all photos are basically white. Don't want to sound like a fool, but how do I set the camera in a correct mode with a flash at daytime while using manual lens?

Conventional wisdom is that, in flash situations, the f-stop setting of the lens controls the amount of illumination on foreground objects and the shutter speed controls the amount of illumination on background objects. What aperture setting were you using on the photos that turned out white? What ISO setting? For flash your K-30 probably needs a shutter speed of 1/160 sec. or slower for the flash to sync properly. I'm not sure, but the camera may also have the ability to adjust the flash output up and down. If so, dialing it down may help.

Light follows an 'inverse square law'. For a constant, fixed light output, if you double the distance to the subject it will receive 1/4 as much light. Triple the original distance and it will get 1/9 as much light. Backing up a bit when shooting macro has the added benefit of giving you more depth of field at a certain aperture. Of course, the subject gets smaller, so there's a trade off.


My Pentax-F 100mm Macro has a minimum focus distance of about 1 foot. At this distance and set to f/4, the depth of field (depth of focus) is 0.04 inches! Moving back to 2 feet changes the DOF to 0.2 inches. As mentioned above, for macro you will usually be stopping down the aperture quite a bit. At 2 feet and f/11, the DOF is 0.55 inches; still not a lot, but OK for small bugs. There are several online DOF calculators. Your K-30 has a nominal crop factor of 1.5. The calculator needs to know this. My favorite calculator is this one:
A Flexible Depth of Field Calculator

Macro photography is a lot of fun once you understand the DOF situation and how to deal with it.

[Kozlok]

I really like the blues in that flower photos. Looks great!

[ToddK]

These are very nice shots. You are going to have a lot of fun with the 100mm macro. It is a great lens. I just bought my 4th macro lens, the Irix 150mm Dragonfly. I now have 35, 50, 100 and 150mm. They are all a lot of fun and very versatile lenses.

[Poonis5]

Conventional wisdom is that, in flash situations, the f-stop setting of the lens controls the amount of illumination on foreground objects and the shutter speed controls the amount of illumination on background objects. What aperture setting were you using on the photos that turned out white? What ISO setting? For flash your K-30 probably needs a shutter speed of 1/160 sec. or slower for the flash to sync properly. I'm not sure, but the camera may also have the ability to adjust the flash output up and down. If so, dialing it down may help.

Light follows an 'inverse square law'. For a constant, fixed light output, if you double the distance to the subject it will receive 1/4 as much light. Triple the original distance and it will get 1/9 as much light. Backing up a bit when shooting macro has the added benefit of giving you more depth of field at a certain aperture. Of course, the subject gets smaller, so there's a trade off.


My Pentax-F 100mm Macro has a minimum focus distance of about 1 foot. At this distance and set to f/4, the depth of field (depth of focus) is 0.04 inches! Moving back to 2 feet changes the DOF to 0.2 inches. As mentioned above, for macro you will usually be stopping down the aperture quite a bit. At 2 feet and f/11, the DOF is 0.55 inches; still not a lot, but OK for small bugs. There are several online DOF calculators. Your K-30 has a nominal crop factor of 1.5. The calculator needs to know this. My favorite calculator is this one:
A Flexible Depth of Field Calculator

Macro photography is a lot of fun once you understand the DOF situation and how to deal with it.

Thank you. Should I be using neutral filters that decrease amount of light that goes through them?

[35mmfilmfan]

I tried using the camera flash and all photos are basically white. Don't want to sound like a fool, but how do I set the camera in a correct mode with a flash at daytime while using manual lens?

Sorry - maybe I didn't explain very well. A 'Ring Flash' is an accessory which attaches to the filter thread of the lens and connects to the camera hot shoe. It gives a fairly low level of shadow-free illumination, as the lens basically looks through it. They can be expensive, though. This link may help : Ring flash - Wikipedia

[Poonis5]

Sorry - maybe I didn't explain very well. A 'Ring Flash' is an accessory which attaches to the filter thread of the lens and connects to the camera hot shoe. It gives a fairly low level of shadow-free illumination, as the lens basically looks through it. They can be expensive, though. This link may help : Ring flash - Wikipedia

I heard about ring flash. I just thought I could use the standard camera flash instead of it. I guess it gives too much light. But is the ring flash specifically designed for daytime macro shooting?

[35mmfilmfan]

I heard about ring flash. I just thought I could use the standard camera flash instead of it. I guess it gives too much light. But is the ring flash specifically designed for daytime macro shooting?

Probably not specifically for daytime use, but the output is sufficient to negate the effect of daylight, when using the correct aperture. When you get one, I should do some test shots at various apertures and distances, keeping note of the exposures (set the shutter speed to the flash sync speed), to see what results work best for you. The problem with the on-camera flash is that it is too powerful for close-up work, and also does not illuminate evenly. Usable for portraits, but not macro. One way to cut down the light emitted, of course, is to use a diffuser over the flash (Not the lens !) - a folded piece of tracing paper, or a white handkerchief were the recommended ways in the past. Much cheaper and probably more effective than ND filters.

BTW, instead of using a close-up lens or filter, extension tubes enable closer focussing with a standard lens (whilst losing Infinity, of course), without impacting the image quality. You can also get a PK reversing ring, which screws into the filter thread on the lens enable it to be attached to the camera in reverse. Both of these often turn up inexpensively on various on-line auction sites.


HTH

Tony