Home Forums Gear Photography Summertime Macro

Summer time is the time for macro! When I was a kid I used to spend a lot of time wandering through the woods looking for bugs and other small creatures. I developed an appreciation of nature that is still with me today. Now that I am a big kid, I wander the woods with my camera searching out bugs and other stuff. Here are a couple of tips to help you get into or maybe improve your macro photography skills a little.

First, understand what the focal length of a macro lens does. For instance, the shorter the lens, 60mm, the closer you need to be to make the object bigger. It is referred to as working distance. A Tamron 60mm Macro lens is great for technical subjects, like guns, knives or animal mounts, or flowers even. The Tamron 90mm Macro lens allows you to get a little farther back but still capture the same image. The working distance is greater by a few inches. This is helpful when you are shooting some insects that might fly off if you get too close because they think you are a predator there to eat them. Lastly, a longer macro lens, like the Tamron 180mm Macro lens is great for insects and gives you even more working distance to your subject.

When photographing, depth of field will be very shallow because of the distance to subject. You can maximize the depth of field by making sure you are parallel to your subject. I find that when I do this I can shoot at about f8 or f11 and get the needed depth of field I desire. Another tip is to not chase your subject around. Find their perch or wait at a flower for them to land. If they feel you are chasing them they think you want to eat them. Dragonflies especially, will return to their perch often. If you do have to follow, just like stalking with a gun, do it slowly and stay low.

I really have found the Tamron 90mm VC USD Macro lens with the Vibration Control has increased my number of keepers. Having the VC feature allows you to hold a lens steady for about 3 additional stops. If you are shooting flowers in low light it can help as well if you don’t have the ability to use a tripod. I have handheld that lens to about 1/15th of a second with good results. Macro lenses also double up as great portrait lenses.

There are some great deals going on at Camera Land right now, so as you go through their deals and get ready to place that order with Mark, make sure you check on the macro lenses! As always let them know you are a member of the Campfire for the best pricing available! Post some macro images for all of us to see!

All images were made using the Tamron SP 90mm Di VC USD Macro lens, except the bee which was made with the Tamron SP 180mm Macro lens.

Nice shots, especially the bee. I know that Mike Moats likes the Tamron 90mm macro

CameraLandTamronPhotAdv:

Great depth of field there!

Don't have a variety of lenses to test, so a question or three. How do depth of field issues compare between say a 60mm and 100mm macro? The same or does one or the other inherently offer up a bit more depth? Also the same question on camera stability. One or the other more affected.

Cookie's been struggling a bit (100mm Canon macro) and it seems camera motion might be the issue. I've been thinking of cobbling together a mounting system such that the camera and the inanimate subjects could be affixed to the same platform. Any motion would similarly affect both camera and subject.

Lastly, would a ring flash offer up the potential to really crank the F-stops down to pinhole size? Cookie's got one, but it's still in the box.

Doug, I love the 90mm as well. I did edit the information up above. The bee was actually shot with the 180mm. I had been shooting both and thought this was a 90mm. Mike is a good friend and pretty much shoots the 90mm and now the 16-300mm. He rarely gets anything else out of his bag. I admire Mike's work very much.

1Minute, the depth of field when the lenses are at the same distance to subject will be different since the wider lens will decompress and give a little more depth. When the subject is filling the sensor with the same subject, i.e. 1:1, it will vary a little but not too noticeable. A ring flash would definitely help with motion, but the longer the lens the more sensitive to movement it will become. The larger the magnification as well will show more movement. There isn't a lot of benefit to shoot at f32 vs f16 IMO with macro. Making sure the eyes of an insect or stamen and pistol of the flower is sharp is the key. I tend to adjust my ISO to give myself 2x the focal length for the steadiest shots. So for a 100mm lens you would want at least 1/200th of a second. Also I tend to focus at a point and then move in and out until the subject is sharp. This helps movement as well.

Thanks for the explanations and hints.

You are welcome, my pleasure.