Spider, grasshopper, headache

[tonydee]

My first post to "macro", and to be honest I'm not sure if there'll be many more. Macro is stressful! Do other people also find it head-ache worthy finding the subject with an MP-E 65 zoomed in, focusing it hand held, getting exposure right, wondering if you're smudging crushed bug over your lens, or said bug is running up the lens to get you, being bitten by mozzies while you crawl around in weird, grimy places? And, heck, they're all cringe-worthy ugly little blighters. I got into photography to shoot gardens, landscapes and nice old buildings, not sure about this. Anyone/everyone been through this, or is macro just not for me? ;)

Anyway, taken with my 400D, MP-E 65mm, cabled Sigma 530 DG SUPER hand-held under /beside the lens....

Cheers,
Tony

400370

400371

[Warl0rd]

I got headaches not from finding bugs but from trying to focus them with my "tiny" viewfinder.

I always shoot in manual mode and I let the ETT-L do its magic and figure out the exposure for me. sometimes I have to set some EV on the flash (specially when the bug is either black or white), but most of the time it misses not my much and I can fix it in PP.

[tonydee]

On my two afternoon outings, I've found E-TTL worked well at 1x, 2x, maybe 3x, but by 5x it seemed consistently underexposed and I got better results manually setting the flash power to 1/4. Don't know yet if it's a quirk of the Sigma's E-TTL, inconsistencies with my hand-holding the flash and lens, or some other manner of user error. Other problems when I put the little inbuilt diffuser down over the flash, and for a while couldn't understand why the flash was stuck at 17mm dispersion :lol:. Live and learn, hey? Been doing a bit of PPing fixes too, especially for hot spots from the un-diffused single flash.... If I do get into this, will put more effort into preparing my kit.

Cheers, Tony

[John_B]

Macro is stressful! Do other people also find it head-ache worthy finding the subject with an MP-E 65 zoomed in, focusing it hand held, getting exposure right, wondering if your smudging crushed bug over your lens, or said bug is running up the lens to get you, being bitten by mozzies while you crawl around in weird, grimy places? tonydee,
A stress that can be well worth it when I get the results. :cool:
Then when I compare it to say a 100mm with a reversed 50mm or 100mm with 68mm extension and a 2xTC the MP-E 65mm f/2.8 doesn't seems as stressful :lol:

[Warl0rd]

On my two afternoon outings, I've found E-TTL worked well at 1x, 2x, maybe 3x, but by 5x it seemed consistently underexposed and I got better results manually setting the flash power to 1/4. Don't know yet if it's a quirk of the Sigma's E-TTL, inconsistencies with my hand-holding the flash and lens, or some other manner of user error. Other problems when I put the little inbuilt diffuser down over the flash, and for a while couldn't understand why the flash was stuck at 17mm dispersion :lol:. Live and learn, hey? Been doing a bit of PPing fixes too, especially for hot spots from the un-diffused single flash.... If I do get into this, will put more effort into preparing my kit.

Cheers, Tonywhat I do is set the apperture to f/16 (to use with 100mm+68mmET), the shutter speed to 1/160 (the minimum to avoid blur from hand holding) or 1/200 (max sync for my camera). the flash will light the subject but won't do much for the background, so I adjust the ISO to get some ambient light in.

I check the result of the 1st shot and perform FEC if needed. then as long as I keep shooting the same subject under the same light conditions, PP should fix the E-TTL variations.

[tonydee]

John: think that Speed Challenge may help... not that I'm about to enter, but in suggesting more diverse subject matter. Got to get more creative, and not just do bugs!

WarL0rd: thanks for the tips... was using similar settings, but hadn't thought to increase the ISO as a control over background... interesting indeed, and will give it a try.

Thanks,
Tony