CornSnakes.com Forums  
  Tired of those Google and InfoLinks ads? Register and log in!

Go Back   CornSnakes.com Forums > The CornSnake Forums > Photography Techniques and Equipment
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read

Notices

Photography Techniques and Equipment This forum is for the discussion of technical details of how to take good pictures as well as discuss the equipment used in that pursuit.

How to shoot sharp handheld macro/close-ups...
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-28-2006, 03:54 PM   #1
Spiritmist
How to shoot sharp handheld macro/close-ups...

Hi All,

Just thought I'd try to contribute a little by sharing a very effective method for shooting macros and close-ups without a tripod.

I never shoot close-ups/macros of living things with a tripod as I find it too cumbersome, and too likely to startle some of my subjects. But if you have an external ttl flash, you can take wonderful close-up/macro shots *handheld*. Here's how...

You need to get your light onto your subject (obviously). You can use ring flash, twin lights, bouncers, etc to do that. I often use just a Lumiquest pocket bouncer to bounce light down in front of the lens. Now here's what you do- set the camera to manual. Set it to a nice small aperture for good depth of field. Since the camera has TTL metering, you can set your shutter speed to *whatever you want* and still take a great shot. By setting a very short shutter speed, you pretty much guarantee that you will have no blur due to camera shake. Additionally, very short shutter speeds will not allow enough time to "soak up" background light, so all of the light illuminating the scene will be flash light. This is a great way to blacken distracting backgrounds. If you *want* the background visible, simply give your shot a longer shutter time.

Here are a few examples illustrating shots with shutter speeds short enough to turn distracting backgrounds to black:




And here's an example of using a short enough shutter speed to get your subject sharp, but long enough to give some background:


Also, if you are using a bouncer for this, one very nice benefit is that sometimes you can make a close working distance work for you- by getting in very close, you can actually bouce light *behind your subject*, which gives a very nice backlighting/translighting to subjects like snow corns, light amels and other more translucent subjects.

Finally, if bouncing the light straight down, it's always a good idea to get something below your subject to use as a reflector. In a pinch, a piece of while paper works just fine for this.

Hope this has been helpful for some.

Kind Regards,
Brian
 
Old 01-28-2006, 04:14 PM   #2
PssdffJay
Thats awesome! Wish I had that kinda money for a camera and lights and stuff though...
I will try and see what i can do in the manual settings of my point and shoot though.
 
Old 01-28-2006, 05:15 PM   #3
Traci1
those are lovely pictures, may I ask please what type of camera you were using?
 
Old 01-29-2006, 09:55 AM   #4
Spiritmist
Thank you...

Thank you Traci and Pssdffj,

I'm glad you enjoyed the post. You've reminded me of a point I had forgotten to bring up earlier. Although I shoot primarily with Canon dSLRs (most often the 20D) and good lenses, the truth is that shots like those I posted can be made with any camera that has a manual setting an allows for an external flash with ttl flash metering. You do not need to spend lots of money. Even the bouncer I mentioned for directing the flash light costs less than $15.00. In fact, because I had meant to make that point, all of the shots I had posted above were taken with so-called point and shoots (I actually dislike that term, since they all had full manual control and can be used more thoughtfully. I prefer calling them "fixed-lens digicams".)

Traci- to answer your question directly- those shots were taken with an Olympus C750 and an Oly 8080, if I remember correctly.

As an aside- the small-sensored digicams have one very great advantage for close-up/macro work over their larger-sensored SLR cousins: greater depth of field. Although this is often seen as a disadvantage compared to the dSLRs (since it makes subject isolation more difficult), it can come in very handy for higher magnification shooting.

Kind Regards,
Brian
 
Old 01-29-2006, 10:42 AM   #5
Joejr14
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiritmist
As an aside- the small-sensored digicams have one very great advantage for close-up/macro work over their larger-sensored SLR cousins: greater depth of field. Although this is often seen as a disadvantage compared to the dSLRs (since it makes subject isolation more difficult), it can come in very handy for higher magnification shooting.

Kind Regards,
Brian
So a digital camera is going to give me better macro shots/depth of field then going into A mode and cranking the f/stop up to 36?
 
Old 01-29-2006, 11:05 AM   #6
jzal8
that first shot is fantastic..i wish i had those fance light bouncers and such to make my shots better...however you comments on shutter speed were very valuable and i think i'll begin playing around with it to see if it helps me at all. thanks for this post.
 
Old 01-29-2006, 11:14 AM   #7
Menhir
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joejr14
So a digital camera is going to give me better macro shots/depth of field then going into A mode and cranking the f/stop up to 36?
No.
But that's not what he was saying.
 
Old 01-29-2006, 11:15 AM   #8
Hurley
LOL, fun with depth of field. Some early shots of non-moving things while I was playing with my camera's settings...


Aperature as dilated as it goes...



Aperature as constricted as it goes...




And yes, I'm feeling the Large sensor = less depth of field while learning this camera (Canon Rebel XT) vs. the other camera (Fuji Finepix 3800). That is something I'm going to have to get used to and I'll have to get my "favorite settings" figured out.
 
Old 01-29-2006, 11:18 AM   #9
Spiritmist
Hi Joe,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joejr14
So a digital camera is going to give me better macro shots/depth of field then going into A mode and cranking the f/stop up to 36?
It's not possible to answer your question directly unless I know exactly what two cameras we are comparing. The easiest way to find equivalent apertures among different camera systems is to compare each to 35mm apertures. To do this for any digital camera, first divide the 35mm equivalent focal length by actual focal length to get the equivalence factor. Then simply multiply your aperture value by that factor to get your 35mm equivalent. (or, if you are using an digital SLR with less than a full-frame sensor, you simply multiply your aperture by the "crop factor" of the digital SLR (it's the same really- both are taking into account the fact that the imaging sensor is smaller than a frame of 35mm film).

How about an example? What if we wanted to get equivalent apertures for a Panasonic FZ20 digicam, a Nikon d70 digital SLR and a Canon Elan 35mm film camera.

For the FZ20, the actual lens focal length ranges from 6-72mm, with a 35mm equivalent of 36-432mm. As I wrote, we divide 35mm equivalent focal length by actual focal length to get the factor you need to determine equivalent apertures. So in this case, 36/6 (or 432/72) = 6. Now all you do is multiply your FZ20 aperture number by 6. For example f/2.8 on the FZ20 is closest to f/16 on a 35mm camera system.

What about the Nikon? Nikon's D70 has a 1.5x "crop factor". Therefore, f.2.8 on a D70 is closet to f/4 on a 35mm system.

To get back to your original question, f/36 on a 35mm system would be equivalent to f/6 on that Panasonic FZ20 I used as an example. So if you went to an aperture smaller than that, then yes- you could get greater DOF than using your f/36 on the other system.

It should also be noted, however, that if you are going for the sharpest possible image, you really don't want to stop down that much as diffraction effects will erode image quality. On the 1.5x and 1.6c dSLRS, diffraction effects become noticable after about f/16. And the reason few small-sensored digital cameras have apertures smaller than f/8 is simply because the physical opening through which light passes is already so small at f/8 in these cams that they are already diffraction limited at that aperture.

I hope this has been helpful and not confusing.

Kind Regards,
Brian
 
Old 01-29-2006, 11:31 AM   #10
Menhir
Thanks Brian,

I tried it several times to explain some photography things, but my english seems too bad to create good explanations.

One thing to add - a novice or someone that doesn't want to spend lot's of time with photography theories will find it way more easy to get good Macros (at a limited range of corse) with a prosumer Digicam than with a DSLR. The "good" thing with a higher depth of field is the possibility to isolate objects afterwards by the photo software. The other way round is much harder and so you need much more experience in what you are doing. Experience, that you do not buy together with a DSLR body.

But hey - the more often I say, that a prosumer camera is a good choice for people that do not want to spend lot's of money in lenses and lot's time in photography theorie, the louder the people scream that have a DSLR and can distingush wether a photo was taken by a DSLR and which was taken by a prosumer, because of the significant difference in quality...

 

Join now to reply to this thread or open new ones for your questions & comments! Cornsnakes.com is the largest online community dedicated to cornsnakes . Registration is open to everyone and FREE. Click Here to Register!

Google
 
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 01:23 AM.





Fauna Top Sites
 

Powered by vBulletin® Version
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Page generated in 0.03955007 seconds with 9 queries
Copyright Rich Zuchowski/SerpenCo