Best way to capture fantastic macro shots?

Never taken any macro shots, but I love the way they look. What would you recommend as teh best way yo do this. I'd like to take so very tight shots without having to be right on top of the subject. Can anyone put together a "list" of what I should have to get started in this area. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Macro lens
Extension tubes
Tripod
Flash

Best way? First and foremost, lots of practice.

For most insects, you'll need to crop, unless you want something like Canon's mpe-65 1x-5x macro lens. It's heavy, specialist and expensive.

I'd go with a 100mm macro lens (Canon 100mm or Sigma 105mm), a 1.4x TC, a set of Kenko/Canon tubes, a flash (430/550/580ex will do fine), a decent flash bracket, Canon #2 offshoe adaptor and a diffuser of some sort (sto-fen works for me). A nifty 50 + 68mm of tubes gives you around 1.4x and is quite small and light. The drawback of course is working distance, at around 4cm or so. A dedicated macro lens will give you more working distance.

And remember: practice.

Dave

Great help Dave, Thanks.

When you are shooting with tubes (which is new to me) do you lose any sort of quality by using more than one?

When shooting with a 100mm and tubes, how close would one need to be to the subject (let's say it was a bug) to attain a nice tight shot?

1:1 focus distance on the Canon 100mm without tubes it 31cm, with tubes it'll be closer.
Remember that focus distance is measured from the sensor plane, not the end of the lens

I recommend the 180mm macro lens. It gives considerably more working distance than the 100mm so you are not right on top of your subject. The 180mm macro is quite possibly the best lens Canon makes. The least expensive way to go would be ext. tubes and/or a Canon 500D close up lens for your 70-200 lens. You might also want a cable release for your camera.

I'd like to get the 180 however I think the price is a little steep for now anyway. (considering I need to get a whole setup including a flash.) I do have an RC-1 remote so I am good there.

taking the advice of dpastern I was thinking of the following setup:

Canon 100mm Macro
Speedlite 430 w/diffuser
Kenko Tubes
bracket and adaptor

Any reccomendations on the bracket?

Hiya Carpenter,
I can't give you any Tech advise but what I can say is. you need plenty of patience, loadsa practice, be able to accept failure as a matter of course, & a huge pair of eyes for reading all the amazing amount of help that's on here, Oh Oh & don't forget the good bank balance, ( I wish )
Cheers for now ( the poor end of town )
Mark

Carp:

I would go with the Canon 100mm Macro or Sigma 105mm Macro, I have the sigma and love it, but a lot of people here have the Canon and love it just as much, these 2 lenses are almost identical.

Along with the Lens you will need:

Flash barcket (lookinto the Delta1 Grip bracket), about $50
#2 Off shoe flash cable, about $50
Flash I would recommend either the Canon 550EX or 430EX, 430 is a bit smaller and cheaper but it's a workhorse. about $250 to $300.
and a flash diffuser, you can use a napkin to cover the flash but the sto-fen diffusers are about $17.

Hope this helps you out.

Several issues with a longer lens - weight and the fact that you're further away from the subject makes framing that more difficult. Working distance is only around 5cm more than the 100mm variants, not much. For someone starting out in macro photography, I wouldn't recommend the Canon 180/Sigma 150. Get a shorter lens, get the technique down to pat, then move up. The only advantage of the longer lens is the working distance, and for many, that won't be an issue. The working distance of around 20cm for the 100mm variants is fine for most subjects. Oh, and cost. The 180mm is very expensive, the Sigma 150mm is much better value, and has equal optical quality imho.

Dave

OK - tubes won't lose you any optical quality at all as there is no glass! It's just a tube filled with air. With my Sigma 150mm, at 1:1 on the focus ring, I'm around 20cm from the end of the lens to the subject distance wise. The 100mm variants will be around 5cm closer. The tubes will allow you to get a bit closer, and slightly more magnification, I'm not sure how much closer as in all honesty I haven't tried using tubes with my Sigma 150mm. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula out there somewhere, but I have no idea where

My advice is to stick to a lens by itself, without tubes, get the focusing part down to pat. Depending upon how steady you are, it might take a week or two, or 3-6 months like it has with myself. Don't expect every shot to be a winner. Once you've got things like sharpness (eyes) down to pat, then concentrate on techniques such as getting the film plane to help maximise the DOF of your subject. Things like composition. Bokeh and backgrounds, etc.

In short, practice, practice, practice. Learn to walk before running. Once you've the basic things like that down to pat, then start experimenting with things like tubes/bellows etc. Don't get too disappointed, it all takes time and practic to start getting great shots (at least from my experience).

Oh, and most of us here do crop our images to get in closer. I have a 1D, 4mp, so cropping is a bit more riskier for myself, those with more modern cameras that have 8mp etc are better to crop with imho. The 1D's issues are banding, a bit noisier than newer models, and slight cropping issues from time to time, so they do sometimes hinder myself. If you've running a Rebel XT or 20D/30D/5D etc etc you shouldn't have any real issues with cropping, just make sure to nail exposure and focus.

Hope this helps.

Dave