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| 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
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| 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.
Just thought I'd mention, if you were to buy yourself a macro lens, then you'd probably also want a four-way macro rail. I've got a 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lens, and being a prime, you don't have the option of zooming in and out so, the rail gives you quite precise control.
ReplyDeleteNot a problem for you as you're using an off-camera flashgun but, if you needed to widen your aperture to bring the shutter speed down whilst staying at low ISOs, you could take several shots progressively focussing along an object and then merging them in Photoshop. This works very well, especially if you're using the cameras tethered capture facility.
Have you seen Magic Lantern (http://www.magiclantern.fm/), that could be very useful for you? I wouldn't be without it now on my 550D :)
Cheers
Karl.