handheld macro = VERY hard!

well, at least for a beginner such as myself...

im praying for a macro IS, although not sure how feasible that would be.

my hand shake is just out of control, even with super high shutter speeds, and a wide open aperture. As soon as I see a dynatran for less than $70 I'll e grabbing it.

Until then, any tips on handheld macro shots?

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heres a 100% crop of the sharpest pic I've managed to capture

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I can't comment on your shots as I haven't the faintest idea what it is.
As for macro shooting tips, they're pretty much the same as normal photography: Use a shutter speed that is faster than your camera shake. To aid this:
Use a monopod or tripod.
Use a higher iso.
Use flash.
Don't shoot 1:1 macro until you've mastered lower magnifications.

Hope that helps,
Eccles.

What the heck are those?

hold your breath while using high magnification, it's like using a long telephoto lens, a little movement is a lot. But anyway, using a flash helps.

thanks, tips seem "common-sensicle,' i'll try a few new things.

i'll add that I have gotten a few sharper shots, but they were at ISO800, and in my opinion, worse than shake-blur images, because of the extreme noise.

I'll certainly try more with flash - I would like to mess with the lighting, but these are very sensitive to heat and light, so I don't want to unleash my 250 or 500w floodlights on them!

by the way: it is a mushroom colony!

I'll take some more tonight with flash, higher ISO, and i'll attempt to use my $5 tripod again as well (originally bought for a video cam, not slr).

oh, and on the topic of holding breath / etc. I do that anyways - in fact, I am a marksman, and i have little to no problem with shake when dealing with guns... I didn't realize macro photography would be so much harder! ha.

i was gonna say looks like mushroom but you beat me to it.

Bill

thanks for the tips.. i added flash, raised my ISO to 400, and tried the best i could to hold my breath...

also tried taking a few steps back, and ill do 1:1 when I have a tripod that can handle it... heh.

here's a sharper photo via the suggested settings, etc.

theres still a little shake, but MUCH better.

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that's better. No reason not to use a tripod for that sort of subject - it ain't going anywhere. Worth spending some dosh on a decent one.

yup, i agree 100%

I was planning on grabbing a tripod much sooner... but these estimated payments to the IRS can do a number on my wishlist

definately alot better with the second batch. little more practice and you get it.

Bill

thanks for the encouragement! I managed to rig my cheap tripod up so that it would hold my camera steady, even when pointing down. I kept the same camera settings as above, except that i changed the ISO back to 100, and put it on a timer, to further eliminate shake from the button press.

After browsing around for a while regarding focus stacking, I downloaded CombineZM and ran 5 shots through it, which i took in manual mode. This gave me the attached image, which I then took into photoshop for a bit of unsharp mask and level adjustment.

Unfortunately, the other stacks I've tried to process have very heavy artifacts, and a few just came out strange, nothing like a photo.

this is probably my best, and sharpest macro shot yet, so any feedback would be appreciated, in terms of what could have been done better, on any level.

here is a full-res version of the entire result:

(link) - finalstack1-copy.jpg

as far as I can tell, there are no obvious artifacts.

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looks like magic musrooms.. great for macro work.!

That's much better. WRT noise at iso800, I was under the impression that the Canon CMOS sensors were better than most. Perhaps you should look at noise reduction software such as Noise Ninja or Neat Image.