This was my first stab at using the two macro tubes Lindsay gave me for Christmas. Stacking them together turned out to be ridiculous; anything I wanted to shoot had to be touching the lens filter before it came into focus! But while I had fun playing around with them individually, I found it a real challenge to keep focus on the object, due to the extremely narrow depth of field. Any breath of wind or any movement on my part completely changed the image. Do you guys have any suggestions for avoiding this? All I could do was take multiple shots and pick the best afterwards. A tripod would be a help, of course, but for this shot I was lying on the ground and shooting up into the flower. Thoughts?
A beautifully composed picture, great colors! It appears you were aiming to have the center of the stamens being in focus, and have focus fall off in front of and behind that plane.
A tripod and/or something to hold the flower steady are the obvious solution. Another solution might be to bracket-focus some shots, if your camera has that function.
Were your multiple shots separate single shots or bursts? Did you use manual focus or auto-focus? A burst of 20 with a single fixed focus point might get the shot as the desired focus point moves in and out of the focal plane. and with auto-focus, it might never be in focus at the exact instant.
Also, did you try a different lens? I haven’t really explored using extenders, but I believe they react differently with different lenses – sometimes in a bit unexpected way as to what you can get.
Actually, I was just hoping _something_ was in focus! Many thanks for the suggestions, Joel; I was taking single shots, manually, but it’s a great idea to try bursts instead. I’ll also try switching it to tracking-focus instead of fixed. I was using my standard 16-55 f2.8 zoom with extender tubes. Perhaps I should try the long zoom as well, though it’s even harder to hold steady and would have been a liability for this shot from true ground level.
Really nice composition and the colors are great. A good friend who’s made his living would echo Joel’s thoughts about multiple bursts. He would also suggest posing/securing the subject matter so it wouldn’t move as much. That and a tripod with a remote release would give you more control. I say that never having used my tripod even when I should have!