Insects - Tips?

[Pandabean]

Just took a couple shots of a bee and a hoverfly the other day with a new 55-250mm Canon IS Lens and was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on how to get a clearer picture of the insects. They look ok in the pictures below but at 100% crop they look a little blurred.

Im using a Canon EOS400D and Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom AF Lens. These were taken on manual and correctly exposed (at 0 on the exposure bar thingy) and at 250mm. I understand that some lenses can be soft at the telephoto end.

Any advice would be appreciated thanks

 

[maddave]

Try a tripod or shooting with a high shutter speed. Alternatively shoot in raw and use the adobe raw plugin in photoshop to sharpen the image

 

[Elines]

I was thinking about insect photography as part of my retirement plan (work is really starting to get in the way).

I assumed it would be a good move to have some kind of clear walled container to put the insect in so that you could have plenty of chances to take a good pic before it moved on - either that or just take pictures of caterpillers

Of course you would need to catch them first

?any suggestions on catching or containers

 

[Goatboy]

Hi,
From old film days seem to remember about depth of field and light. May wan't to have a look around on minature wargaming figure sites for some tips as an odd aside. Those chaps photo stuff on a small scale all the time.
GB

 

[British Red]

With the best will in the world, you will never get truly superb insect shots on that lens. For top end insect work - if you really want to get close and sharp, I would invest in a dedicated macro lens.

Tips are, drop the ISO to 80, get a great tripod, use a slow exposure and high F number to gain depth of field.

Now clearly this means a long slow exposure through a little hole on a slow "film" speed - not ideal and even harder when the insect is moving - but it does get sharp results

Clearly you want to be on single point focus in "Av" mode - single point to ensure your camera is locking on to the insect not the flower, Av to get a high F stop. You can mipulate which focal point the camera uses (or even use manual focus). I also spot meter for insect shots.

Its not always aprropriate to do all the fancy stuff though - just take lots of photos .

Being careful got me this

Hand held got this

Red

 

[Pandabean]

BR - those shots are amazing. What would I have to look for in a macro lens. I don't fancy buying one now since I have just got this one but I can always add it to the wishlist. Do you know what would be possible with my lens?

Im not sure if my camera can drop to ISO 80, I always have it around 100-200. Im slightly confused by what you said, if you increase the F-number does that not get rid of the blurred background?

Goatboy - interesting idea. Might have a look at those and see if the can help.

 

[British Red]

Im not sure if my camera can drop to ISO 80, I always have it around 100-200. Im slightly confused by what you said, if you increase the F-number does that not get rid of the blurred background?

Pandabean,

The Canon EF-S range of tryue Macro Lenses are top drawer - I use a 60mm model - a friend of mine the 100mm model - both give great results. The big thing with Macro lenses is you can get close - very close. Photographing an insects eye is very possible and you can get focus from a distance of 1cm from the lens touching the insect - hence the sharpness.

The reason to play with Fstops is to increase the depth of field. On many an insect shot, I have just part of, say, a wasp in focus and the rest are not. In extreme close ups, I have a depth of field (amount that is in focus) of less than 1mm. So if the lens is, say, 5cm from the insect, I have anything from 50mm to 51mm in focus. Anything beyond that is out of focus. If the grass the insect is on sways in the breeze, the lot is blurry.

I have a shot that perfectly illustrates the problem if you would like me to show it - where different parts of a wasps head are in and out of focus - I wish I had taken my own advice with that shot!

Don't despair though, you can great insect shots with a lens like yours (which is a superb lens) - there are tricks to use that will help!

Red

 

[nicodiemus]

Depth of field is so much fun for new photographers!

Panda, you may find your lens won't go down to its narrowest aperture size when zoomed in. Your lens should be good for mid / close range animal / nature photography, portraits, or just about any general purpose photography.

For Macro photography I often find manual focus works better. You should be able to pick up a fairly cheap Canon fit 100mm macro lens for fairly cheap. For a cheap and cheerful macro lens, Cosina and Tamron are OK brands.

Example shot with 100mm Cosina:

 

[British Red]

Great points nico!

This perhaps illustrates how small the depth of field can be - I couldn't get half the length of a wasp in focus!

However this was shot on a compact camera

Tips,

Note how the insect is square to the picture - so it sits inside the depth of field. Had I been shooting the head with the body further away, the body would "blur"

Also the light is behind me (the photographer) ensuring that there is little shadow, and a high shutter speed minimising blur. Note though that the wheat stalk is overexposed - so beware having too much light when you have a dark insect on a light background.

Also I am not trying to get too close. The closer I get, the smaller the depth of field can become

Hope that helps a bit?

Red

 

[Cobweb]

If push comes to shove and your wallet is feeling a little light, you can buy close up filters. I am not a dedicated insect photographer or macro photographer by any means but I bought a set of close up filters from ebay and they do me fine for my abstract macro stuff.

You need to find out the diameter of your lens, it should be on the front, and then just buy some! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/72MM-MACRO-CL...s_JN?hash=item3353ceba24&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

If you get them, use your lens at the wide end of the scale and a f stop of about f8.

Ps, with kit lenses, their widest aperture is usually pretty soft, so their best f number for sharpness is usually about two stops up from their widest.

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks again BR. I will give a few things a go this weekend if the rain stays off.

I see in your wasp photo you have the right eye out of focus but everything behind him. Would it be a case of zooming out a little or stepping back to be able to get it all in?

Cobweb, I am still using the kit lens and it has got me some good results, but I have never thought about upgrading it.

Nico, your so right about the DOF being so fun for new photographers. Although im not that new, just taking my time to get round to buying lenses.

I think the next investment will be some ND filters if I can work out what ones are good to get and how they work with a EOS400D.

 

[British Red]

I see in your wasp photo you have the right eye out of focus but everything behind him. Would it be a case of zooming out a little or stepping back to be able to get it all in?
.

On that exposure / aperture, if I had the eye in foucus, everything behind it would blur.

If I go to a really small aperture (High F stop), more would be in focus, but it would be a longer exposure - which risked the wasp moving and blurring for a different reason!

Its all a bit tricky really!

Red

 

[nicodiemus]

Red, I tried a Leica M8. Wow!

 

[Pandabean]

Here are a few from today.... not as great as the closeups you have BR. I took some of your tips into consideration, including the tripod. It is a cheap jessops one but does the job.

 

[teflon]

Seems that 'cheap Jessop tripod' has saved you hundreds already. And if I can also suggest something, which is to make up a cheapo reflector - a piece of white card is easy, perhaps covered with some crumpled tin foil glued to one side, around 2 foot square or thereabouts. But before you even do that, you could just prop up a bit of newspaper or something to see a quick result - the whole point being to push a bit more light in on the shadow side or where ever you think you need it.

Did you shoot those indoors by the way? Just curious. Anyway - good luck with it.

edit: Personally, I think it's a bloody good effort. Sorry. Nearly forgot.

 

[British Red]

PAndabean,

If I had taken that shot of the bumble on the French Lavender I would have been delighted!

Both the hoverfly shots are "good" but the top one is "great"!!!

Red

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks teflon. I never thought about using a reflector. Those shots were all out my back garden. The cheap tripod has done me well especially for some of my beach shots for example the one at the bottom of this post. Although I wouldn't trust it if it was a bit windier than when I took the flower shots.

Thanks Red, I looked at it on the LCD and thought it was ok and thought the Bee was out of focus but I am pleased with what I got. The bottom hoverfly pic isn't that good, I don't like how the second one is out of focus.

I got some of a butterfly yesterday that was sunbathing but I haven't uploaded them to the computer yet so I would have to see what I got.