Thread: My attemp at Macro

No idea on the technical bits but I like the peg photo. Nice and simple with just the four colours.
Any close up like that is going to have a very shallow focus point (whatever the technical terms are).

Quite impressive, I must buy some tubes!

You can deal with the depth of field problem in some cases by taking multiple exposures are different focal points. Then put them into layers in PS and delete the out of focus parts from each layer. This should leave only the in focus parts. I've never tried this, but read about it in mag.

Requires a good tripod and a steady subject!

Cheers, Steve

I'm not familiar with nikons but depending on the ext. tubes you have , because the DOF is so shallow when you open the aperture up you may need to manually focus to get the effect you want or point of focus to be sharp. Which tubes did you buy ? A mate got me a 50mm F1.8 lens and at F1.8 there is an area of less than 1" that is in focus with front and behind nicely blurred .

Although a true macro lens with 1:1 reproduction would be nice a good macro zoom can focus as close - my sigma will focus on an object touching the UV filter !

Originally Posted by loanrangie

I'm not familiar with nikons but depending on the ext. tubes you have ,

because the DOF is so shallow when you open the aperture up you may need to manually focus to get the effect you want or point of focus to be sharp.

Which tubes did you buy ? A mate got me a 50mm F1.8 lens and at F1.8 there is an area of less than 1" that is in focus with front and behind nicely blurred .

Although a true macro lens with 1:1 reproduction would be nice a good macro zoom can focus as close - my sigma will focus on an object touching the UV filter !

i had to manually focus any way.....and i must not of explained my self very well! i had to do everything manually including setting aperture shutter speed focus and had to get the exposure right by doing all of these with out the aid of the exposure bar..thats why some are a tad over and a tad under i just figered i could pull them back in the light room

you cant auto focus with the tubes on

(so the photo's above by the way are un touched)


my point being when focusing i had only a very small area which would sharpen.....

if you look at the yellow flower there is a patch in the middle that is soft yet off to the side is sharp

its almost like my focusing point has been locked off to the left

this was done with my tamron 2.8 which also says macro in the title.....these shots were taken between f4 and f11

If the focus is off like that it could point to slightly non-parallel tubes. It wouldn't take much to have an effect. Or the minimal depth of field is showing a pre-existing lens fault.

Steve

Originally Posted by 300+

If the focus is off like that it could point to slightly non-parallel tubes. It wouldn't take much to have an effect. Or the minimal depth of field is showing a pre-existing lens fault.

Steve

mmmm interesting.....food for thought

although thinking about it it didn't do it on all of them maybe it is something to do with the tubes or maybe its just me

Originally Posted by dullbird

i had to manually focus any way.....and i must not of explained my self very well! i had to do everything manually including setting aperture shutter speed focus and had to get the exposure right by doing all of these with out the aid of the exposure bar..thats why some are a tad over and a tad under i just figered i could pull them back in the light room

you cant auto focus with the tubes on

(so the photo's above by the way are un touched)


my point being when focusing i had only a very small area which would sharpen.....

if you look at the yellow flower there is a patch in the middle that is soft yet off to the side is sharp

its almost like my focusing point has been locked off to the left

this was done with my tamron 2.8 which also says macro in the title.....these shots were taken between f4 and f11

I understood what you meant, its only cheap tubes that dont have the electrical contacts that allow AF to function, thats what i was saying by with macro and especially using large apertures you only have a shallow depth of field so it makes focusing harder if you have a range of distances on the same object that you want sharp. More than likely it is user error and not the tubes that prevent a certain area from being in focus- have had the same problem, they look good on the camera but once on a 19" monitor they are a bit soft .