Another try at a Ladybird

Another try today to get some decent ladybird photos.

#1



#2



#3



Round here they seem very camera shy - point the camera at them and they turn round and look the other way.... so you have to be quick! These were on an ornamental cherry tree.

No.1:- K-5 with DFA 100mm f/2.8 macro
1/250 sec @ f/11, ISO:200

No.2:- K-5 with DFA 100mm f/2.8 macro + 1.4x Tamron converter
1/160 sec @ f/11, ISO:5000

No.3:- K-5 with DFA 100mm f/2.8 macro + 1.4x Tamron converter
1/125 sec @ f/13, ISO:800

I experimented with the onboard flash diffused which may go someway to explain the differing exposures.

John

Pretty good, the 3rd gets my vote for best shot, all the bug is in focus, it'sits better in frame and looks alive.

3rd for me as well - it's a very good shot indeed. Nicely in focus and good depth of field.

The first is just a little out of focus at the critical bits and the second shows far too much noise because of the high ISO. Are you leaving the camera on auto? Can't understand why it would suddenly have selected ISO 5000 otherwise. You would be better off leaving it in AV mode and keeping the aperture at f13 or smaller. You can see the results of the smaller aperture in the last picture. At least limit the ISO to 400 or so to prevent this happening again.

Why do you feel the need to use the converter? Whilst the results, especially in the 3rd photo, are excellent, you have a fantastic macro lens I can only dream of getting. The working distance with this on it's own should be fine without the converter and any additional glass in the way is bound to have an impact on image quality and reduce the light available.

Try some of these again without the converter, limiting the ISO and using a smaller aperture. Good as the 3rd one is, I think you will see a difference.

Are these hand held? Manual or auto focus? Might be worth trying 'catch in focus' if you are using manual focus. I usually have a better success rate with this. I've not got a set-up that allows auto focus, but that wouldn't be the choice anyway for most macro photographers.

Addictive this macro, isn't it

I never use the 'green' auto mode, but was changing between Av and TAv. It could be because they were taken after 6pm so the light was dropping fast. I was also experimenting with using the onboard flash and changing the amount of diffusing on it; I'm also never quite sure what affect using the onboard flash as a fill in has either as it doesn't seem so controllable in the way that it was with a separate flashgun on a film camera.


Well in the first picture even focussing at 1:1 the ladybird was still quite small. I couldn't focus closer so used the converter. The Tamron seems to give good results and only looses one stop. No. 3 was my last shot of the day and by this time I'd got the tripod out as well so that helped keeping it steady for focussing, and the ladybird had slowed down so wasn't having to chase it!


It's a trade off to try and fill the frame. It's either that or crop heavily.

The first ones were hand held, though when the critters slowed down I got the tripod out! No.1 I'm not sure about but nos.2&3 were using the tripod. I have the autofocus set on the AF button so fine focussing is done manually. I tried liveview focussing but all that did was cause the lens and camera to lock up! I've not tried 'catch-in' focussing yet, other than seeing if I can get the camera to do it, so may give that a try. My worry is that the camera would take the picture before it could be framed properly. Might be good for hand held shots though.

Indeed it is. Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

John

You aren't ever going to fill the frame at 1:1 so some cropping is inevitable if you want a larger image. Given the camera and lens you have that isn't ever likely to lead to much, if any, image degradation unless you magnify like crazy.

Your teleconverter is obviously very good, but I'd still expect a 1:1 image with the lens alone to be better cropped and magnified than a larger image achieved by using the lens and converter. Just experiment a little. If I'm wrong then great!

The most recent picture in my portfolio is a 100% magnification from my £30 setup and very little, if any, detail is lost from the original. Your setup is way better than that so you should have no problem. The previous photo on my portfolio of the ladybird is an original 1:1 shot and will take magnification of several times before losing detail and clarity. Both are better if you click on them to view 'large'

You can easily limit the ISO so whatever setting you use it won't go over your maximum. I rarely use anything over 200 to give me as much detail as possible, though I suspect anything up to 500 or so would be fine.

I've never used AF for macro as I don't have any suitable AF lenses. I'd be concerned that it might scare the insects away (definitely with a K-r!) and the DOF is so small I suspect the camera would have difficulty judging focus anyway. That might be why yours locked up - just got too confused.

I have used liveview with some success, but prefer the viewfinder where possible. I pretty much use catch in focus all the time for macro now, unless I'm using the tripod. It's so accurate with my K-r. Framing isn't really an issue as I crop pretty much everything to frame the insect anyway.

Good luck. Judging by the 3rd ladybird picture you are going to be getting some pretty impressive results.

Well went outside around midday and they were there again, five of them clambering over the ornamental cherry tree! They seemed to like sun bathing right at the very top. Fortunately the tree isn't very tall.

Tried Catch-in focus as suggested. Had some success with it with hand held shots but sometimes it didn't fire - so probably missed all the best shots - I'll never know! Moving the camera must create an element of camera shake so got the tripod out for the rest of today's attempts. Tried liveview again imagining I had a K-01, but I couldn't see what was on the screen because of the sun (so not adding one of those to the buying list for now.) I took quite a few but this one tells the best story:

Look Behind You




It's important to note the photo title and look closely.

K-5 with DFA 100mm f2.8 macro;
1/250 sec @ f16, ISO 800;
Teleconverter - no;
Flash - no;
Tripod - yes!


Hopefully I'm getting there!

John

No ladybirds were harmed during the taking of this photo.

I like that - took me a while to see the spider. Super picture.

I saw the spider before looking at the title - but my eyes are trained for seeing creatures camouflaged.

Lovely photo.

I don't get on with the live view either I always use the view finder. Keep 'em coming.

Thank you both.

That camouflage is quite incredible. I've some other pictures with the spider and ladybird too so will have to see if they are any good and what I can do with them. I think the ladybirds got used to me being there after a while and stopped turning and running away!

John

The image above gave me a huge grin when I saw the spider haha. Great picture !

Wake Up Spotty!




Another one from the set.

John