paul_de_ley

<p>Hey, #2 didn't upload correctly - here's another attempt:</p>

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Oops sorry Sally! Not sure what happened here to make my unrelated post from 12 years ago pop up in your thread out of the blue. Some odd quirk of the website? I haven't opened this image in years nor was I trying to move the post or do anything else with it recently. And it shouldn't have any indexed or hidden search terms to do with the thread's subject (I've never tried getting into stock photography).

 

Please ignore this odd intrusion everyone, so it doesn't lead to an irrelevant distraction from the actual thread subject. I'll message the webmasters a site bug headsup and ask them to remove the post. Lacking any obvious reason why it got randomly dropped in here in the first place, who knows whether hitting "report" or drawing further attention to my stray post might trigger other random site behavior.

For some reason no one seems to have made a 19-35 or 18-35 that convinces... my wide lenses that do better on full frame and cost me under $500 are: Sigma 15-30 3.5-4.5 EX DG and Tamron 20-40 2.7-3.5 SP AF (first version = model nr 166D) on the zoom side, and Sigma 24 2.8 "super wide II" on the prime side. The zooms both were about $300 from keh, the 24 2.8 shows up more often, even in pawn shops and such, and is usually less than $100 in A-mount.

 

The 24 prime is no bigger than a 50 1.7 so easily comes along on any trip. Between the two zooms the Sigma is big and has a really bulging front element with fixed petal hood (a bit more trouble to use filters with), while the Tamron is slightly more compact and has a lovely rock-solid build, with a threaded front end = easier for mounting filters. All of these provide very nice colors and contrast, much better than the utterly "bleh" Quantaray 18-35 I had a long time ago.

<p>If $170 is within your budget then I would suggest getting a good used manual focus version of a true macro lens plus the appropriate adapter to X-mount. KEH still has quite a few of them left, for example, despite the black friday/cyber monday onslaught.</p>

<p>Another possibility are the optically excellent Raynox DCM series macro diopters. There are two versions which sell around $60 each with a near-universal front adapter, or for about $110 you can get the kit that includes both of them (packaged as CM2000, not under the DCM moniker). Two things to keep in mind with diopters is that they behave quite differently from extension tubes: 1) your focus distance will become as good as fixed and 2) total magnification goes up dramatically with focal length of the lens they're mounted on - provided that lens is a 90mm or longer ... shorter focal lengths will give you hardly any magnification at all.</p>

<p>Btw, I wouldn't worry at all about AF performance if you do decide to go for an "autofocusable" solution. At magnifications of 0.3x or higher, manual focus with focus peaking on gets me many more correctly focused shots than any AF setting I've ever tried (with sony not fuji bodies).</p>

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<p>I'm a serious amateur trying to improve my closeup and macro shots. When I see an amazing image I wish I knew how the photographer captured it. I'm curious why I don't see technical or technique info associated with any images submitted here. The dragonfly for instance - were you able to get so close because it was cold?</p>

 

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<p>Chris that sounds like the perfect question to pose as a new thread! :)</p>

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<p>Two jagged ambush bugs. Despite what may at first glance appear to be reproductive behavior they are in fact hunting as a pair. This allows them to take take down larger prey.</p>

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<p>Gordon I've seen them pair up but never realized there was more involved than the urge to sit still and multiply! At least the following two didn't look like they were focusing on lunch as much:</p><div></div>

<p>Meanwhile other members of the family get caught up in knotty situations:</p>

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<p>No marinades or other tricks required, the secrets lie in the quality of the cuts, the serious BBQ equipment and the hands of the grillmaster:</p>

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<p>Way down south Argentina had a long weekend to celebrate "Dia de la Soberiana", which naturally meant there had to be some serious grilling and eating!</p>

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<p>On the opposite side of the globe in central Argentina it's a relatively mild and moist summer so far, insects are still gearing up for the real heat to come.</p><div></div>

<p>Last but not least, a local beefly (bee fly not beef lie). All taken with a65 + Sigma 70 2.8 macro.</p><div></div>

<p>No idea yet how to begin identifying the local insects (butterflies excepted of course, they get all the attention no matter where you click) but I guess this is a local paper wasp?</p><div></div>

<p>Randy what does the HHT refer to in your caption for the moon? Those reds and greens in your third shot remind me that I always loved my a100's crisp colors at iso100...</p>

<p>Patrick I think the dog wasn't quite as eager as your son to follow the director's instructions for the scene at hand ^o^</p>

<p>It's been a mad mad mad six months for me but now I'm in Argentina again for work, and hopefully that means I'll find more time to keep up with the PotW fun again. And what could be more fun than some hot & hairy bugs from down under in the "Conosur"?</p><div></div>

<p>I'm fortunate to visit Argentina on a regular basis. The diversity of plants and animals new to me is all the greater here, and thus the "never enough time" factor all the more pronounced!</p>

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<p>Consensus seems to be that at 1:1 and larger (working at or close to minimum focus distance) VR does not impart any benefit.</p>

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<p>That's said quite often and I think I've seen it stated most frequently in discussions involving Nikon or Canon gear. I don't think it's true at all though, unless you're referring exclusively to tripod mounted macro work and/or shooting macro with high-speed flash gear.</p>

<p>I'm pretty confident most people (like myself) using camera systems with sensor stabilization (Sony, Pentax etc) found that they definitely get more sharp shots with stabilization on during handheld macro shooting in available light. I haven't used any 5-axis stabilization system camera yet, but I can think of plenty of circumstances where yaw and roll compensating axes should be all the more beneficial, and just as useful for macro as for longer-distance shooting.</p>

<p>Quite possibly the official line in Canon and Nikon marketing departments was that VR/IS wasn't very useful in macro lenses ... for as long as there were no VR/IS versions of macro lenses offered in their catalogs. Nowadays they both do offer it, at least for the most-recommended focal length macro prime in their respective lineups, so obviously their marketing and/or engineering assumptions have changed.</p>

<p>As to the OP's question: you should be able to get sharp shots at 1/60s handheld with the 105mm and some extension, unless there are particular challenges involved with lighting. And just for a better understanding of your approach to date: are you using a body with full frame or APS sized body, and which macro subjects do you work with most often? How much cropping are you willing to do in post processing, for example to get better DOF by sacrificing some magnification?</p>

<p>I'm late to the discussion, but if any topic allows nits to be picked then surely macro is it ;)</p>

<p>Matt's definition is obviously more useful, but my own rule of thumb is that macro stands mostly for magnifications between 1:2 and 1:1. No idea whether I (mis)read that in classic 35mm era macro books like John Shaw's "Closeups in Nature" or Lester Lefkowitz' "Manual of Close-Up Photography". All the more since both avoided the word macro altogether in their book titles.</p>

<p>But it probably has something to with the time period and the fact that many 35mm to medium format sized "macro" primes in those days reached magnifications of 1:2 only, unless you added a more or less dedicated tube/converter/diopter or such.</p>

<p>Does it really matter? I don't think so, Matt's approach will be perfectly fine and some of us will make the occasional grumpy comment no matter what definition gets the official nod.</p>

<p>Would I for one mind if anyone posted shots taken with a zoom that gets only to 1:3, or asked questions about the use of a "true" macro prime for portraiture or landscapes, or posted their views on the performance of lenses designed to exceed 1:1 without requiring accessories? Not at all, that's what the card-carrying PN referees aka moderators are for. And are questions or shots posted in this forum going to undercut others such as the Nature forum? I doubt it very much, not least because that forum has its own rules, for example the weekly Monday in Nature thread has a pretty consistently enforced rule against shots with manmade objects in the frame.</p>

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<p>Sometimes the surprises are hidden in plain sight, by pretending to be someone else - until you get a really close look :)</p>

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<p>Mary it looks like <em>A. muscaria</em> var. <em>formosa</em> aka the yellow-orange Fly Agaric mushroom. For us it's of course poisonous but slugs aren't necessarily affected, some species love eating it while others reportedly avoid it.</p>

<p>Great Purple Hairstreak in Granite Mountains Reserve, heart of the mojave desert. Caught in pixels three weeks ago (the past two mondays were gone before I knew it).</p>

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<p>Desert Whitetail at Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge (NM)</p>

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<p>Great catch of the "backyardrunner" Bill! And that's a lovely IR shot Rick :)</p>

<p>My preferred way of staying out of "hand of man" trouble is to get as close as possible. Provided the feral subject doesn't bite/sting/trample the hand of the photographer man, of course.</p><div></div>

<p>Yes those are definitely queens, the distinction between flying royalty of the ant world versus wasps or bees can be confusing as they are all hymenopterans. By way of example for confusion going the other way, here's an interestingly furry "velvet ant" from New Mexico ... which is really a wingless wasp!</p><div></div>

<p>Check out als links for regional keys to different fly/mosquito families as listed at <a href="http://www.diptera.info/weblinks.php?cat_id=7">http://www.diptera.info/weblinks.php?cat_id=7</a></p>

<p>A similar type of list with online keys for beetles at <a href="http://www.coleoptera.org/p1488.htm">http://www.coleoptera.org/p1488.htm</a></p>

<p>A key to major groups (mostly orders) that provides links to image databases and/or keys for particular groups within many of those orders: <a href="http://biokeys.berkeley.edu/inverts/insecta_orders.html">http://biokeys.berkeley.edu/inverts/insecta_orders.html</a></p>

<p>Seems like Laura and Christopher's pictures of snakes with big appetites the past two weeks have started a trend that isn't about to stop. In this week's case the ambitious snake has definitely bitten off more than it could swallow - the catfish's pectoral spines were obviously not going in.</p>

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<p>Another delegate from the Graceful Ungulate Party - to my regret not anywhere near my back yard:</p><div></div>

<p>Out in the open landscapes of the southwest I've been looking for fungi but have had no luck: temperatures these past few weeks have pretty consistently peaked well over 100F/38C = hot for early summer, even in the local deserts.</p>

<p>The tiger beetles are loving it, however! Here's one working up a shoreline suntan at Lyman Lake State Park near St Johns AZ:</p>

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