My Macro Technique

Water drops on a leaf
shutter speed 1/200, aperture f22, ISO100
2 flash setup
macro tubes

I often wish I could afford a true macro lens but alas I cannot. I have tried a few options in the past, starting with my 18-55mm lense.

I then brought a set of theses polaroid close up filters. I found these were pretty lame as they are not very good optically. If you are to only use say the +1, +2 and +4 on there own you can sometimes get a semi decent photo but steer clear of the +10 and using them in combination.

I went on to buy a canon 75-300mm zoom lens, I got a few good macro shots out of this lens on its own. The down side is that zoomed at the 300mm range the focus distance is 150cm.

A few months ago brought a set of manual macro tubes. These only work with my 75-300mm lens but they have the plus side of not containing any optics, so aslong as they fit the optic quality is that of the lens attached. Down side you loose any mechanical features of said lens, such as focus 'IS' and aperture control. The loss of focus and 'IS' is not such a big problem as i feel you get a better result from manually focusing the lens. as far as 'IS' is concerned it shouldn't be a problem as for most cases you should and probably us a tripod. The lack of aperture control is a very big downside. I have to set the aperture manually via having the lens set to say 'F22' pressing the aperture preview button and while holding that button release the lens from the body and then add your macro tubes.

With the above method the settings in camera are still very important.

I tend to keep my lens at the 75mm end, manual mode, pop-up flash on, yongnuo flash unit set to slave mode 'S1'.

In camera i tend to set ups as follows.

• Shutter speed 1/125 - 1/200 of a second
• Aperture preset at 
• ISO100 - 200
• Auto white balance
• RAW
• Pop-up flash on

The yongnuo flash settings

• S1 mode
• Zoomed to 50mm
• 7/8th power
• Rotated to 90degrees
• Bounce card out

Macro set up

I will just mention that if you spend around £50 for your macro tubes you can get them with the electronic connectors.

Fundamentals of Photography

In my eyes there are 3 main things you have to think about to get the right exposure.

1. Shutter Speed
2. Aperture
3. ISO

The first thing to know is that if you get one of these things wrong your exposure may not have the wow factor.

A photo is in essence a capture of light. Your camera measures lights in "stops".

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the time the curtain in front of the sensor is open for. This is measured in seconds. on my 'canon 550d' I can set it the shutter speed from 1/4000second (fastest) to 30seconds. there is also 'BULB' mode which is there for a custom shutter speed for anything from 1second to as long as the power supply lasts.

The preset times for the shutter speed are set to change the 'stops' by 1/3 increments, for example if you set the shutter speed to 1/200sec and change it to 1/250sec it will darken the exposure by 1/3 of a stop. If you were to change it to 1/160se it will lighten your exposure by 1/3 of a stop.

Aperture
Aperture is measured in F'stops'. In my eyes it is very tricky to get a grasp of. This is because the smaller the 'F' number is the larger the aperture opening is for example my 'canon 18-55mm' lens set at 18mm is wide open at 'F'3.5 and is at its smallest at 'F'22

Now let me try to explain how the aperture effects the exposure. the first thing to remember is that the smaller the 'F' number the more light can get to the sensor when you take an exposure. this means you will be able to use a faster shutter speed or a lower 'ISO' (more about that later). A side-affect of this is something called 'Depth of Field' or 'DoF' this is used to bring only certain things into focus. For example a photo of a flower taken at 'F'3.5 will have a blown out background whereas a the same flower taken at 'F'11 will have a lot more in focus.

'F'3.5      aperture example        'F'11

As I stated for the shutter speed, the preset aperture settings are set to change the 'stops' of light by 1/3 increments for example if you set the aperture to 'F'7.1 and change it to 'F'6.3 it will lighten the exposure by 1/3 of a 'stop', if you were to change it 'F'8 it will darken the exposure by 1/3 of a 'stop'

ISO
ISO is the setting that you use to determine how sensitive the sensor in your camera is. my 'canon 550D' has a range from ISO100 to ISO6400

The ISO sensitivity doubles in size so the 550D goes from ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 each jump equals to 1'stop'. For example if you set your ISO to 200 and then change it to 400 your exposure will be 1'stop' brighter, if you were to change it to 100 it would become 1'stop darker

When the ISO is bumped up it has an effect on your photo by showing noise in the photo.

Choosing your ISO depends on what you are shooting and what for. for example if you are shooting to get a pin point perfect exposure you need to pick the lowest ISO possible, if you are capturing a memory than the grain/noise in a photo may not matter so much.

Shutter speed + Aperture + ISO =
When you add all of this together and get it all correct you should get a perfectly exposed photo. Saying this that doesnt mean it the best exposure to suit you and the subject. after time you will find your own style of photography. Here are examples of how just changing one of the 3 settings change the exposure

ISO1600, Aperture5.6, Shutter speed 1/15second
Under exposed -2stops

ISO1600, Aperture5.6, Shutter speed 1/4second
Correct exposure 0+/-

ISO1600, Aperture5.6, Shutter speed 1second
Over exposed +2stops

Ice time lapse

A couple of months ago I decided to make a time lapse of an ice cube melting but as i was editing it i found playing it in reverse was more interesting.

I did make one or two mistakes while making this video. As i left my camera on auto white balance and i shot it in JPEG so i couldn't adjust the white balance in post processing.

This is maybe like my 3rd ever time making a time lapse so i still have a steep learning curve to master this process.

Light Photography

Here are some of photos manipulating the use of light

light orb

light without power

ring of sparks

life in the dark

shady tractor

the power of heat

burning under stress

spiro-LIGHT-graph

star gate

follow the laser

One of my favorite things to play with is light manipulation. To for this you need a sturdy tripod, a shutter release cable and a lot of time and patience.

Some of the sbove images have an exposure time of over 7minutes, others as short as 1/1000second  

my camera gear

In today's post I am going to show what kit I have collected over the last year.

camera gear

Starting from the back right.

• Camera bag. I have actually got 2 identical ones so i don't have to carry all my gear at the same time.
• Sturdy tripod

middle row from the right

• A selection of filters including a polarising filter, nd8 neutral filter and some macro filters
• Canon zoom lens EF 75-300mm 4-5.6 III
• Shutter release
• Canon EFS 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 kit lens
• Canon 550D body
• Manual macro extension tubes
• Yongnuo YN560 speedlite

Front row from the right

• Selection of batteries (i have 3 in total)
• Memory cards (i carry 2 at all times)
• Iwinka wireless triggers and receivers for flash

My kit is by no means professional but it is within my budget and it gets the job done

new photograpghy blog

Hello.
I am an amature photographer wanting to share my work with the world.

Over the next few posts I will be sharing some of the knowledge I have gathered and put together.
I will also be posting some of my favorite images.