[Phosphene]

Here are some more taken in the last few days.

I tend to post most of my stuff to facebook. Feel free to befriend me on there if you are curious to see more shots like these. I tend to post them there first. Also do a lot of HDR stuff. I have not posted nearly a fraction of what I have taken with that combo on here.

http://www.facebook.com/jp.daugherty1?fref=ts

If you don't want to befriend me on there you do not have to. I believe most of my albums are open to the public.

Attached Images

         

[potsmoker]

Here are some more taken in the last few days.

I tend to post most of my stuff to facebook. Feel free to befriend me on there if you are curious to see more shots like these. I tend to post them there first. Also do a lot of HDR stuff. I have not posted nearly a fraction of what I have taken with that combo on here.

http://www.facebook.com/jp.daugherty1?fref=ts

If you don't want to befriend me on there you do not have to. I believe most of my albums are open to the public.

Phosphene,
Thank you for Very informative reply. It really helped to sort things out.
So, all these staggering exposures were made without a support (tripod) or just that one with an ash borer was made handheld? Hope one day I will be able to do something similar. As for now, I just want to buy all necessary equipment to be fully prepared when spring finally arrives.

[Phosphene]

Phosphene,
Thank you for Very informative reply. It really helped to sort things out.
So, all these staggering exposures were made without a support (tripod) or just that one with an ash borer was made handheld? Hope one day I will be able to do something similar. As for now, I just want to buy all necessary equipment to be fully prepared when spring finally arrives.

All of these last shots I posted the other day were hand-held. Even the stack was done hand-held since I had something to brace myself up against.

About the only time I use a tripod now is for when I am doing a serious stack of a subject that I am sure will not move (ice crystals and what not) and when I am shooting HDR landscape shots I use a tripod. I primarily like the freedom of shooting hand-held because for one, I can snap many angles of certain subjects, and I can just pick up and move onto whatever the next subject will be that I may find. Always packing a tripod was tiresome and more often than not I would get exhausted just fighting the damn legs of it which would get caught in heavy grass or weeds.

Granted, tripod shots are a heck of a lot more stable and end up being sharper but with practice you can learn to steady yourself enough to grab most shots. I am also always running a shutter speed of 1/180th of a sec which is plenty fast enough for me on limiting blur.

Your first several outings doing this will be frustrating as Hades. It just takes practice and patience as well as learning how to approach certain insects without frightening them off since you will be shoving a camera lens that probably looks like a big bird beak to them, into their faces.

Sometimes I use a ring flash but most often it is just an external flash with a cheap fotodiox attachment.

[Culture]

All of these last shots I posted the other day were hand-held. Even the stack was done hand-held since I had something to brace myself up against.

About the only time I use a tripod now is for when I am doing a serious stack of a subject that I am sure will not move (ice crystals and what not) and when I am shooting HDR landscape shots I use a tripod. I primarily like the freedom of shooting hand-held because for one, I can snap many angles of certain subjects, and I can just pick up and move onto whatever the next subject will be that I may find. Always packing a tripod was tiresome and more often than not I would get exhausted just fighting the damn legs of it which would get caught in heavy grass or weeds.

Granted, tripod shots are a heck of a lot more stable and end up being sharper but with practice you can learn to steady yourself enough to grab most shots. I am also always running a shutter speed of 1/180th of a sec which is plenty fast enough for me on limiting blur.

Your first several outings doing this will be frustrating as Hades. It just takes practice and patience as well as learning how to approach certain insects without frightening them off since you will be shoving a camera lens that probably looks like a big bird beak to them, into their faces.

Sometimes I use a ring flash but most often it is just an external flash with a cheap fotodiox attachment.

Phosphene,
I think we have the same idea when shooting. I remember the first time I used a tripod for macro, I threw it away after about 15min.
I couldnt get even close to my subject.
Anyway I have also be using an external flash resently. Not a ttl flash. A normal speedlight with my own made fotodiox attachment.
Its a little tricky to get the right exposure, but once I find the right power for the ambient, I use the ISO settings to increase or decrease the light intake. The flash is also good to frieeze my shot.

I wonder though how you are able to stack shots handheld. You must have really steady hands.

Another thing to consider, if you are like me and you want to get as much of the subject in focus in one shot is to use the curvature of the raynox lens to your advantage. Put the center of the lens on a slight indentation of the subject and allow the backward curvature of the lens to capture protrusions from your subject within the focal plane. I have only been shooting with it for a year but I tend to learn more and more with every shot. As you all know, lighting in each scene is different. Also backing off of the subject a slight bit at times allows more of your subject to fall within that narrow focal plane. I hope this helps.

Can you elaborate on this more?

[Phosphene]

Phosphene,
I think we have the same idea when shooting. I remember the first time I used a tripod for macro, I threw it away after about 15min.
I couldnt get even close to my subject.
Anyway I have also be using an external flash resently. Not a ttl flash. A normal speedlight with my own made fotodiox attachment.
Its a little tricky to get the right exposure, but once I find the right power for the ambient, I use the ISO settings to increase or decrease the light intake. The flash is also good to frieeze my shot.

I wonder though how you are able to stack shots handheld. You must have really steady hands.



Can you elaborate on this more?

I stacked those shots by bracing the front of the raynox to the light pole it was standing on and then just moved ever so slightly forward and backward while keeping steady. That is probably the most shots I have stacked hand-held with it. Normally I can only pull off about two or three if I am lucky and I normally have to manually align and blend the images in photoshop to correct for very slight perspective changes. Luckily in that stack, photoshop auto aligned and blended fairly well. I did have to /place and blend in one of the images again where it fuzzed stuff up a bit. Hand-held stacking is rough but if the subject is in a nice position and not moving and I am able to brace myself fairly well, then...that is what you get up above. The subject was above my head so approx 7 foot off of the ground. I was careful not to lean on/put too much weight onto the lens.

As for my focusing technique I guess I was wrong. I thought I was getting a slight amount of lens distortion with the 250 but apparently I am just getting most things I want to fall within a flat focal plane. I do not know what made me think I was getting an ever so slight fish-eye effect in the past. So please forgive the misinformation on that if that is what you were asking me to elaborate on. And I guess the backing off of the subject some instead of shooting in maximum telephoto/minimum focal distance has been putting more of the subject near the center hotspot of the Raynox rather than completely filling the frame and getting softness at the edges. I am sure that running the lens at F22-25 is the reason why I am getting that much of subject in focus then.

Like I said, I am still learning. So technically, I am a macro newb. :P

I am now considering getting the 150 to stack onto the 100WR +250 to see if I can still pull off hand held shots on even smaller subjects like aphids and what not. I most likely will have to start using a tripod for that though. I have a stackshot I haven't much used which should be handy for that setup. I better start using the dang thing since it cost more than those two lenses combined. I really have to be in the mood to use that it though because that is a lot of gear to pack out into the field. Plus it is some heavy stuff that I do not overly trust on my current vanguard tripod system.

Ok now I am rambling. Forgive the misinformation.

[Culture]

Hi Phosphene
Thanks for the information that is really helpful to know. But your statement about being a newb made me laugh

In your previous post you made mention of this.....

Another thing to consider, if you are like me and you want to get as much of the subject in focus in one shot is to use the curvature of the raynox lens to your advantage. Put the center of the lens on a slight indentation of the subject and allow the backward curvature of the lens to capture protrusions from your subject within the focal plane. I have only been shooting with it for a year but I tend to learn more and more with every shot. As you all know, lighting in each scene is different. Also backing off of the subject a slight bit at times allows more of your subject to fall within that narrow focal plane. I hope this helps.

...using the curvature of the raynox to assist in focusing. What does this purpose serve. I am not sue I understood the technic.

[Phosphene]

Hi Phosphene
Thanks for the information that is really helpful to know. But your statement about being a newb made me laugh

In your previous post you made mention of this.....


...using the curvature of the raynox to assist in focusing. What does this purpose serve. I am not sue I understood the technic.

Culture read my last post on that. I corrected what I said by saying this, "As for my focusing technique I guess I was wrong. I thought I was getting a slight amount of lens distortion with the 250 but apparently I am just getting most things I want to fall within a flat focal plane. I do not know what made me think I was getting an ever so slight fish-eye effect in the past. So please forgive the misinformation on that if that is what you were asking me to elaborate on. And I guess the backing off of the subject some instead of shooting in maximum telephoto/minimum focal distance has been putting more of the subject near the center hotspot of the Raynox rather than completely filling the frame and getting softness at the edges. I am sure that running the lens at F22-25 is the reason why I am getting that much of subject in focus then. "

[Phosphene]

Hi Phosphene
Thanks for the information that is really helpful to know. But your statement about being a newb made me laugh

In your previous post you made mention of this.....


...using the curvature of the raynox to assist in focusing. What does this purpose serve. I am not sue I understood the technic.

And thanks. Sorry for the confusion. I am not normally the type to spread wrong information so please forgive me for that post. I thought I was getting some lens distortion from the raynox but apparently I was wrong.

[Culture]

Here are couple that I shot over the weekend.
This one is a little bit underexposed, but I hope you like it.


Here is another one

[Culture]

And thanks. Sorry for the confusion. I am not normally the type to spread wrong information so please forgive me for that post. I thought I was getting some lens distortion from the raynox but apparently I was wrong.

No problem Phosphene. Thanks for the explanation.

[Phosphene]

Here are couple that I shot over the weekend.
This one is a little bit underexposed, but I hope you like it.


Here is another one

That is odd. They are not showing up for me. I will check back again in a bit. Maybe it is something on my end. Forgive me for taking so long to reply. I get caught up in things and forget to check back in. Have been snapping a pantload of macro shots lately. I look forward to seeing your shots once they turn up for me.

[Culture]

That is odd. They are not showing up for me. I will check back again in a bit. Maybe it is something on my end. Forgive me for taking so long to reply. I get caught up in things and forget to check back in. Have been snapping a pantload of macro shots lately. I look forward to seeing your shots once they turn up for me.

Phosphene, Sorry about that. The joy of Skydrive security.

I cannot seem to link pictures from skydrive. When I eventually got work arounds, apparently that also failed.

[Phosphene]

Phosphene, Sorry about that. The joy of Skydrive security.

I cannot seem to link pictures from skydrive. When I eventually got work arounds, apparently that also failed.

Excellent! You are shooting in RAW right? The underexposure on that shouldn't be an issue since it isn't very underexposed. Easily fixed in post unless it was way underexposed and you brought it back to those levels. Either case, nice bro!

[Culture]

That was the funny thing. I normally shoot in RAW, but the day before I took these I was doing some tests so I changed it to JPG. And forgot.

When I finished with this shoot was going to modify it I saw that all my shots were JPG.

Anyway I could have still tweaked it in gimp with the levels but I thought I had just let it be.

[minahasa]

What would be better, getting a dedicated 90-105-ish macro lens, or DA 50/55-200/300 zoom with Raynox 250?
Thanks!

Edit:
Thing is, I already have the 250, and I'm deciding what lens to get next

Here's 250 with Sigma 18-200


..and another one with SMC M 100mm f/2.8 + ExTubes