Tag: Macromoments

Macro Moments Challenge #38 - Catkins

Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer, Susan Gutterman, to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from others photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge. #MacroMoments

Originally I was going to pass on this macro challenge. I didn't think I could find a catkin. But worse, I didn't know what a catkin was. But even with a Wikipedia and Google image search, I still could not think of where to find these. So I asked what a catkin was, and Susan answered. But still, where would I find these things. I had recalled seeing things that looked like catkins, but where?

I used Google and Flickr, and after a few hours, I thought I might be able to find some at the Rutgers University garden. I’m driving my son to campus for a meeting with his freshman academic advisor. He's been invited to attend the Honors College and spend much of his summer planning for the fall. The Cook College campus is about a forty-five-minute drive from home. Visiting the gardens will give me something to do while he meets.

It rained in the morning. I parked the car, set up the camera and walked around. I got wet. So did the camera. The gardens are beautiful, but I can imagine it is even more so when it's not raining. After about thirty minutes of walking around, I was ready to give up and walk home. I felt like a wildlife photographer looking for the elusive Yeti. Then I found my first catkin.

If you would like to test your patience, try shooting catkins in the rain with a macro lens with a slight breeze. After twenty minutes of that, I gave up. I found a pine tree with some catkins, but I found focusing on these conditions challenging. I also found lots of catkins under my feet. They had fallen from the trees above. Too high to climb (and not permissible in the gardens). I photographed the decaying catkins at my feet.

I looked at my images after importing them to Adobe Lightroom. They were mostly shit. Garbage. Many were blurry from the wind blowing them around. Others were full of ISO noise from having to shoot at high ISO. I deleted them all except for this one. It's the best of the best of them. It's not a sharp image. But I was fortunate to have a sliver of focus between the catkin and the leaf because the composition angle was mostly flat.

Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer Susan Gutterman to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from other photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge.

Water - Macro Moments Challenge #37

Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer, Susan Gutterman, to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from others photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge. #MacroMoments

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My original vision was to create a macro shot of some object reflected in a water drop. We had a lot of rainfall in May and it seemed fitting to attempt to capture water. However, I soon discovered how difficult it is to shoot water drops. Shooting handheld down at the level of leaves was challenging. I was soon exhausted from bending over leaves and holding my breath to reduce camera shake. The slightest movement and the images are blurred.

I then tried using a tripod. This improved stability but presented a new challenge. Water drops on leaves are delicate things. Positioning the lens in the right spot for optimal focus often meant accidentally disturbing the foliage. In some cases, I lost the drop of water. It would fall off the leaf. Capturing a set of useable images was an exercise in patience with much trial and error.

Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer, Susan Gutterman, to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from others photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge.

Macro Moments Challenge #36 Bokeh

The word bokeh is a Japanese loanword to the English language. The term refers to the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image. Note that bokeh is not the same as a blur. Bokeh is the quality of the blur. Visible bokeh is often achieved by shooting at very wide apertures to blur the background.

One of the characteristics of macro photography is that subjects are shot at close distances. While this close camera-to-subject proximity can lead to visually pleasing images captured from a unique perspective, macro photography presents unique technical challenges. One of these challenges for macro photographers is achieving sharp focus for all of the subject’s essential elements. This is dependent on depth-of-field (DOF).

In macro photography, DOF depends primarily on just two factors: aperture value and magnification. At any given aperture value, the higher the magnification ratio, the smaller the DOF. These factors are why DOF is so shallow in macro; the magnifications are more significant than in any other type of photography.

If the lens's aperture is too wide, the DOF will be too shallow, and many areas of the subject will be out of focus. To increase the depth of field and bring more areas of the item into focus, the photographer must decrease the aperture of the lens. Aperture is controlled by the f-stop setting on the camera or lens.

You can see an example below where an aperture of f/16 produced a DOF too shallow to bring the entire flower into sharp focus.

14 April, 2017 | Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) | Nikon D5100 | Nikkor AF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 | f/5.6 | ISO 100

It was a challenge to execute the bi-monthly Macro Moments challenge. I do not have a dedicated macro lens. I shoot with Kenko extension tubes attached to my AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. It is not an ideal setup, but it was the least expensive way to try macro photography.

To shoot macro with this lens and extension tubes while getting a depth-of-field that produces enough depth of field, I have to shoot at around 48mm with the extension tubes, at an f-stop between 22 and 32. The extension tubes are the only way I can control the magnification ratio. I had to experiment with the various tubes, which meant taking many test shots, removing one of the tubes, re-attaching the lens, etc.

The result is the Rue anemone photo in the featured image for this post, which also doubles as my submission for this challenge. The bokeh is noticeable but not as prominent as it would have been shooting wide open.

Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer, Susan Gutterman, to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from other photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge.