Fun With My New Macro!

[camaroracer214]

I got a new macro lens for Christmas, but haven't had a chance to use it...until this weekend anyways.

I was forced to go shopping with the wife :hmm3: but on the way home I made her sit at the fish store while I took my time taking aquarium pictures.

The camera is a Canon XSi with a 100mm macro lens. I didn't have my tripod with me, but I think the shots came out somewhat decent.

Settings:
Aperture Priority mode
f stop at 2.8
ISO 800

 

[Octoshark]

Nice shots

I was forced to go shopping with the wife :hmm3: but on the way home I made her sit at the fish store while I took my time taking aquarium pictures.

lol, I have wanted to take my DSLR to my LFS to take some pictures but didnt want to look like a weirdo.

P.S - I see you have your degree in Marine Biology, I will have mine in the coming months.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Nice shots! What kind of jobs are you getting with a bachelors? I am wishy-washy between marine bio and engineering. Off to calc2 right now actually, so I haven't come to the fork of committing to one or the other yet. Engineering is looking good only because I fear I need a PHD in marine bio to really do anything with it.

 

[Recty]

They look nice.

I'm not sure if you're looking for constructive criticism or not, but they basically all look slightly out of focus. One thing I noticed is the pictures were taken at too slow of a shutter speed for handheld. Both clownfish pictures were 1/100th of a second, the sun corals at 1/80th of a second...

General rule of thumb is you want your shutter speed to be faster than your focal length. So if you're shooting at 100mm (your macro) and you're on a 1.6X crop body like your rebel, making you effectively shooting at 160mm, you need to be taking your pictures at AT LEAST 1/160th of a second. That has nothing to do with fixing motion blur caused by your subject moving, the 1/160th thing just helps do away with blur from your hands slightly moving while the shutter is open.

I have what I consider to be a lot of experience taking fish pictures I almost never end up with any good shots under 1/250th of a second, no matter if I'm taking them at 10mm or 100mm, moving subjects like fish just are too difficult to get really crisp and sharp at slower speeds.

I'm not saying your shots are bad, they are good especially considering it's your first time using that lens, but I think you'll get shots you are happier with if you bump up to at least 1/160th of a second, preferably 1/250th. Of course, then you have to jump up the ISO which creates a whole new set of problems!

 

[camaroracer214]

@TitusvileSurfer - actually i don't have a marine biology job =(. i graduated in 2008 and have been looking, but the gulf coast doesn't have much in terms of selection or pay. they either want you to work for nothing or have a crap load of experience. so, i am back in school treking after my other passion...computers. almost done with it and will be doing network related jobs.

@Recty - bring on the constructive criticism. i don't get to play with the camera all that much since i'm still in the process of building my next setup and don't have anything to photograph. so, i'll take all the help i can get. the images are a tad blurry, but i thought they weren't too bad considering no tripod and not a whole lot of experience with the camera or the lens. but it is very appreciated.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Mehhh that's about what I expected to hear. Keep the faith!

 

[camaroracer214]

i tried my hand at the pictures again this weekend, but couldn't get the shutter speed working to my advantage.

the camera has a shutter priority mode and an aperture priority mode. i usually like to shoot in aperture priority, but can't figure out how to increase the shutter speed in that mode. when i was in shutter priority mode, i kept getting really dark pictures. i tried to tinker with exposure settings and what not, but all of the pics came out really dark. so, i switched back to aperture priority and snapped off a few more decent shots.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

If you are getting really dark pictures in shutter priority mode, you will probably notice the aperture reading flashing. This means you have pushed the aperture to the max. Your selected shutter speed must be used and ISO is set manually as well (try boosting that to 800 or so). If you set the shutter speed super high, they other elements can't always catch up. There just isn't enough light to go around.

 

[Recty]

Personally, I think you'd be better off going into manual mode and setting each setting how you want. Basically, you know you want F/2.8, so set that. You know you'll want a shutter speed of 1/160th or better, so set it to at least 1/160th. Then just adjust your ISO until your picture is bright enough for your taste.

If you hit the point where the ISO is so high you're getting noise in the picture that is ruining the shot for you, then back the ISO off to where you are OK with the amount of noise, then start backing off the shutter speed until you're where you have enough light again.

A Photoshop plugin like Noiseware goes a long way towards letting you use high ISO and reducing the noise in post processing... so you could use that to help counteract having to use a high ISO.

Are you using a tripod? If not, you should start. That helps a TON in this type of photography. Also, turn off your pumps and powerheads for 10 minutes, then start taking pictures... your coral shots wont be blurry from movement of the corals themselves and if you're on a tripod, you can turn your shutter speed way down since the corals are no longer moving. I've gotten some extremely sharp coral pictures taken a 1 second exposure because I've turned off all my pumps and let everything settle down for 10 minutes.

 

[camaroracer214]

i have a tripod that i usually use, but all of these pictures were taken at local fish stores. the owners of a few of the lfs i visit usually ask me to come by and look at new products to discuss on my blog. so, turning off the pumps at the stores is not always an option.

i'll try the manual setting and see how i can get things. i never thought about that mode for some reason. thanks for all the help.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

I agree with Recty that manual would be the way to go.

 

[IPT]

hmmm, I use Manual mode on occasion. Though I often use Aperature priority too. If the shutter speed isn't what you want you will need to dial down exposure (called exposure compensation). Depending on the subject you may actually want it to be under exposed (according to the camera at least). Just a thought. Lots of way to skin a cat (or take a picture for that matter!)

 

[BlueCorn]

hmmm, I use Manual mode on occasion. Though I often use Aperature priority too. If the shutter speed isn't what you want you will need to dial down exposure (called exposure compensation). Depending on the subject you may actually want it to be under exposed (according to the camera at least). Just a thought. Lots of way to skin a cat (or take a picture for that matter!)

That's exactly why I shoot in manual as well. If you're having to dial in compensation in an automatic exposure more you're doing more work than just setting it manually.