135 F2 for Macro.

My first attempt at Macro with my 135 F2.

A nice set piece but I wonder why there's so much noise on a static subject.

Any advice greatfully accepted as I am VERY new to macro work.

Shot was 135 F2l at 125 sec. iso 100 hand held with some wind and UV filter on the lens taken at f2.8

Could shallow DOF have been a problem or too much crop?

Actually I'm surprised at the amount of noise too, I can see from the Exif data that it was taken at 1/125th @ f/2.8 and ISO 100. I'm certainly no macro expert.

You didn't by any chance find that it was under-exposed and then tweak it in photoshop? As that could explain the noise somewhat. You're usually better over-exposing and pulling it back, although I suppose that's a pretty daft statement as the best bet is to get the exposure spot on in camera Other than that I've no idea. I do like the picture though.

cheers
Bill

Thanks Bill.

I did underexpose it and I did lighten it up in PS.

In future I will do as you suggest and err on the OVER expose side.

Cheers
Chris

noisy but nice.

Not a bad shot at all, but as the others have said, noisy. If you underexpose a shot and rescue it (either via DPP or in Photoshop), you'll add more noise to the image. You could try something like Neat Image to help clean the noise up.

Dave

Thanks again Dave I will get it and try, the advice here is priceless.

Cheers
Chris

Here's an attempt to clean it up. I had to resize it a little and I used Photoshop's reduce-noise filter instead of Neat Image (I already had PS up and I'm too lazy to load up Neat Image) but it actually doesn't look too bad. Loses a little detail but, being a flower shot, that doesn't matter that much.

Thanks MrVile, I am fairly new to photoshop as well and the help I have been getting here beats the hell out of their "Help" menu.

I will try that shot again with the 100 Macro lens and MR-14EX ring light.

Just got a 135/f2. What an awesome piece of glass!

The edited version is very nice