Ladybird from today.

Still playing around with the macro, still a lot of improvement to be made. C&C welcome.



IMGP0482 by Pentax K-r, on Flickr



IMGP0485 by Pentax K-r, on Flickr



IMGP0480 by Pentax K-r, on Flickr

They seem pretty sharp at this size but if you go look at them larger on flickr they are pretty soft tbh. The last is the best by quite some way.

You need to start using some sort of external lighting so that you can get your ISO down and your shutter speed up .. the built in flash is a good start (use some paper towel or similar to dampen the light a bit and use the flash compensation to lower the output).

Also Macro shots are mostly about the subject and nothing else so (apart from the odd exception) you can crop a lot heavier to bring the insect/flower/whatever right to the front of the picture

Not a bad effort though.

Thanks for the advice Mike.

I completely forgot about the shutter speed, like an idiot I was using a slow shutter speed to compensate for the lighting.

I was using a tripod for the first picture, I'm not sure whether the blur is due to the short shutter speed or/and that the tripod shook when taking a picture even when using the Ir remote.

The last picture was taken indoors using a Ikea lamp, hence the yellowish light and obvious shadow.

The ISO was 200 and 800 in that order for the first 2 pictures. 200 being the lowest I can go.

It didn't even occur to me to experiment with flash argh!

If these are with the 90mm Tamron then you should be able to get in much closer with plenty of sharpness.

If your tripod is tending to shake then that's an obvious weakness and probably needs to be addressed. The slow shutter speed isn't likely to be the problem if you are using a sturdy tripod unless the ladybird is moving.

You might want to try using the 2 second delay on the K-r rather than the remote and see if that works better. The image stabilising turns off and the mirror lifts which minimises vibration. I have the remote and never use it now as results are always better with the delay.

I'd stick with as low an ISO as you can get away with. The K-r can do some very impressive shots at high ISO, but with high magnification macro shots you need all the quality you can get.

Lastly, you seem to have managed to find the dullest, sickest looking ladybird I've seen for some time! If I saw that one in my garden I'd assume it was dead.......

There are plenty of beautiful bright red ones knocking around now that Spring is sort of arriving. Use one of them instead and that will make a big difference, especially if you can shoot it against a contrasting background like a green leaf or a flower.

Good luck and post some more when you have them.

Why is 200 the lowest you can go?

A low of 200 is the default factory setting on the K-r so I'd guess the camera settings simply haven't been adjusted.

The ISO can be set to a low of 100 (page 89 user manual) unless highlight correction is set to 'on' in which case 200 is the minimum.

Well here's my Ladybird shot from today ... taken with the Canon 50D so not allowed to actually display it on the forum.

Sooo good Mike P, that MP-E 65mm really is the dogs dangleberrys

Yeah, yeah, he needs to get some proper lighting

That is a Harlequin Ladybird, a foreign imposter that is having a detrimental impact on native ladybirds. I saw a lot of these a couple of years ago, but the hard winter in 2010 / 2011 killed a lot of them off. The last couple of years the natives have fought back and there are loads about at the moment.

Regards
David

http://www.harlequin-survey.org/

for some info.

Cheers David

I remember reading about them, but can't recall seeing one around here. Tons of the real thing this year so far - more than I can ever remember.

Super shot, also I'm pleased the LB has a "ginger" colour as a lot of them on here are so red it looks like they are painted with "Post Office" red.

Mine never stay still long enough to paint......