A little help

[charlie]

Mike or Gene,
I took this pic Friday up at Rob's house:


28-135 f3.5-5.6 lens
Av mode
f4.5
1/125 shutter speed
No tripod


What I need help with is I would really like the pic to be much clearer, showing more of the individual polyps. I have always had this problem shooting Montipora and Seriatopora corals, I can't seem to separate the polyps, if you know what I mean?? Am I out of focus???
Willing to practice!!!!

[Poseidon]

Charlie, can you e-mail me the full res image? I will post it on smugmug then repost it here. It looks like you did miss the focus a little, but I get the resolution blockiness before I get to the polyp level.

[charlie]

OK, I will give it a go, it'll be a minute or 2.

[charlie]

This brings another question. I have had the camera set to the auto focus. Should I deep six this and manually focus this stuff?

[Poseidon]

Check this out:



You can see a little more detail here.

The focus is not perfect Charlie, but it is close. It is possible you may have been able to get perfect by going manual, but the difference would not have been that great. You would have captured more detail using F11 or F16, and a much longer shutter speed, which would have required the use of a tripod.

[charlie]

Alright, after reading thru the DOF thread, that kind of confirms my suspicions then. I need to start carrying my tripod with me when I want to take a macro shot. Whether I am using a macro lens or not!!!!!!!
Now what I wnat to know is how you sharpened it that much more??

I wish I used that photoshop enough to get that good with it. It doesn't matter how much you read!!!! I wish for the chance to sit down someday with somebody that uses it on more or less a daily basis.

[Poseidon]

LOL!!! Actually Charlie I didn't sharpen it that much. I went to 100 and a radius of 1.0 pixel, the scale goes to 300.

Then I did a little cropping, re-sharpen for posting.

[charlie]

Is it better to use more pixels????

[Poseidon]

No, it is not better or worse, it just is. You will see artifacts faster when you use a larger pixel radius. The best way to learn is to just plunk down in front of the machine, and trial and error it Charlie.

[charlie]

Just got done with a bunch of that today Mike, thank heaven for the delete function. I took a raft load of pics this afternoon, some good, some bad, some I just hit delete.
But I think I did learn something from some of the previous posts. Once I can get them uploaded to the gallery, I'll update my thread with some of them.

[zhenya]

I need to start carrying my tripod with me when I want to take a macro shot. Whether I am using a macro lens or not!!!!!!!

Charlie,

It's a good habit to use tripod, especially with longer exposures. Having said that, I rarely use mine when I use my 60mm macro lens. What I do is I put the hood on the lens and use that as a leverage. That also keeps the lens perpendicular to the glass. Since it is a macro lens it lets me focus really close on subjects and hood keeps the front element away from the glass as well. I haven't unfolded my tripod in a while and probably need to practice a bit.

By the way, that is a nice monti.

[charlie]

Charlie,

It's a good habit to use tripod, especially with longer exposures. Having said that, I rarely use mine when I use my 60mm macro lens. What I do is I put the hood on the lens and use that as a leverage. That also keeps the lens perpendicular to the glass. Since it is a macro lens it lets me focus really close on subjects and hood keeps the front element away from the glass as well. I haven't unfolded my tripod in a while and probably need to practice a bit.

By the way, that is a nice monti.

That Monti was a trade for 3 Pavona frags, I couldn't believe it!!! Rob got himself a heck of a deal.

[Lucid]

The best way to learn is to just plunk down in front of the machine, and trial and error it Charlie.

Totally agree with this. It's kinda like learning how to use a computer at first. It's all foreign and frustrating. Though once you learn a couple of tricks and the tools, you'll be ready to start reading all those thousands of fun PS tutorials out there. Some are really cool like how to convert your pic to look like those old comic book drawings.

[charlie]

It is just getting the time to sit down and do that.