macro

MPPHOTOS

MPPHOTOS

Macro Photography

If you want to see what the insect world is like, then you are getting into the world of macro photography.As with most photography you can spend a lot on lenses, and filters, or find a cheaper way. I took the pictures on this page with what they call macro tubes. The ones I have are in three pieces that can be screwed together, or used one at a time giving you different magnifications. I have 13mm, 21mm, and 31mm, and I always use all three screwed together. There are also two types of macro tubes, you can get just the tubes that have no auto focus, or ones that do. I have only used the non auto focus ones.

All the pictures on the page are taken on a budget using macro tubes which you can easily find on places like Ebay. Of course they are not as good as images taken by professional macro lenses. I made these pages to show beginners like myself that you can get a good result without spending a fortune. If you have any questions please email me, and I will help if I can.

Obviously if you are using the non auto focus tubes then you are going to need a lot of patience because you have to get the focusing done by moving the camera to get a focused shot. When I took the pictures of the ants I used an Olympus E410 slr camera with three macro rings in between the camera, and a 150mm lens, exposure value of 1/125 seconds ISO 400. I did not use any flash light, but if I remember correctly it was a nice sunny day.

Flowers always make a nice Photo but can take a bit of time and patience. If you are having a nice day with no wind you are lucky. Most of the time you will have some wind. Try sheltering the flower with something or if the wind is only slight then up your exposure setting slightly. Or if there is no wind at all then use your tripod. Don’t forget if you want to have a blurred back ground then choose a low F rating like F4. Take a few shots then you can pick the best one. The best thing about a Digital camera is you can take as many shots as you want and just delete the ones you don’t like.

Photographing Flowers

When I took the picture on the left it was slightly windy so I got as close to the spider As I could and held my camera as still as possible. Then I let the wind take the subject closer and further away and I took the shot when I thought it was a good focus. After taking a few shots I decided to keep this picture. It is not as good as I would have liked but it’s not bad. If its Possible I would rest the hood of the lens on something to keep the camera steady.

Photographing Spiders

When I took the picture to the right it was a nice bright day. I used all of the macro rings so I could get as close as I can. I managed to rest the lens cover that was attached to the lens on the floor, this was enough to hold the camera still. I could then slowly follow the ant as it moved across the floor and take a few shots. I used an f rate setting of f4 so I could blur out the background, and I then cropped the image.

Getting very close