Fangs for a good year - 2005

[ortega]

one of my last shots of 2005 and i think one of my best as well
I hope you like it

[melvynyeo]

Funky pose An excellent shot. Both the composition and lighting is great.

To nitpit, I would prefer the front legs to be in focus.

[ortega]

other spiders from ASH

[ortega]

Originally Posted by melvynyeo Funky pose An excellent shot. Both the composition and lighting is great. To nitpit, I would prefer the front legs to be in focus.

thanks

So would i, so would i

[mr_jason]

Agreed. For shooting macro, it's my opinion that the whole subject should be in focus. Quite different from street or portrait where you could just keep certain areas in focus and blur the rest. Out of focus regions are somewhat distracting.

[ortega]

Originally Posted by mr_jason Agreed. For shooting macro, it's my opinion that the whole subject should be in focus. Quite different from street or portrait where you could just keep certain areas in focus and blur the rest. Out of focus regions are somewhat distracting.

i know about the preference of the macro shooters here
but in the end you will all have the same shots with the same angles and the same pose
kinda boring don't you think?

anyway I have been there and done that.
the shallower DOF is a trade off to get nice light, balanced with the ambient light.
it's just me

thanks for your comments

[simonsng]

double post

[simonsng]

firstly, I think the title doesnt fit the series, focus aint on the fangs nor are they in focus

I think its not so much of a standard here in CS, but in macro photography.. macro is also about details.. I dunno about here, but if you take a look at the foreign forums in macrophotography, its a different story. go NPSS and see for yourself.

but of cos, if some of us aint caught up with a fetish with "go as close as possible" closeup and call that a macro, trash composition.. I think perfectly fine ;P. its till call macro... without composition...

glad to hear u compensate a shallower DOF for better lighting.. mabe a tripod with a slower shutterspeed will help?

my 2 cts

[DeSwitch]

I didnt know spiders have fangs. Macro is very interesting. There are so much tiny details that wee dont often see. That what get me hooked on Macro after joining this forum.


Now my wife no longer nags so much on the $$ spent on my new equipment. She will say Dragonfly eyes like this one meh, etc..


Good shot Otega.

[ortega]

Originally Posted by simonsng firstly, I think the title doesnt fit the series, focus aint on the fangs nor are they in focus I think its not so much of a standard here in CS, but in macro photography.. macro is also about details.. I dunno about here, but if you take a look at the foreign forums in macrophotography, its a different story. go NPSS and see for yourself. but of cos, if some of us aint caught up with a fetish with "go as close as possible" closeup and call that a macro, trash composition.. I think perfectly fine ;P. its till call macro... without composition... glad to hear u compensate a shallower DOF for better lighting.. mabe a tripod with a slower shutterspeed will help? my 2 cts

the title is a pun for "thanks"

take for example butt shots, nice to look at but after a while
it seems that all the shots will start to look the same.
it just doesn't challenge me anymore.

I tought of the tripod/slower shutter speed and i am trying that setup out
but these shots were shot during my lunch time, so have to make do.
thanks for your input.

Sometimes I find that the use of less DOF in the composition can put some soul into a picture, this is in compairision to a really nice looking scientific shot of full details.
But that is just me.

[ortega]

Originally Posted by DeSwitch I didnt know spiders have fangs. Macro is very interesting. There are so much tiny details that wee dont often see. That what get me hooked on Macro after joining this forum. Now my wife no longer nags so much on the $$ spent on my new equipment. She will say Dragonfly eyes like this one meh, etc.. Good shot Otega.

thank you deswitch, i was suprised to see the fangs that big as well.
i was hooked just last year, after seeing the excellent shots by
the more experienced macro shooters here.

hope to see more shots from you

[mr_jason]

Originally Posted by ortega take for example butt shots, nice to look at but after a while it seems that all the shots will start to look the same. it just doesn't challenge me anymore.

The 'challenge' in photography is not produce pictures for the sake of getting shots which look different from other people's shots. Sure it's great if you could produce a unique and stunning shot, but not when you deviate so far from the fundementals, which in macro would be to capture the details of your subject, with good composition.

Originally Posted by ortega Sometimes I find that the use of less DOF in the composition can put some soul into a picture, this is in compairision to a really nice looking scientific shot of full details. But that is just me.

Anyone can just open up a lens to f/2.8 and then get a shot with maximum 'soul'. It's a pity nowadays people like such shots with more 'soul' with multiple planes out of focus, as opposed to shots which are technically sound with good composition. Lots of bokeh, boleh?

[ortega]

i think you are mistaken, i normally shoot F16 and smaller.
you are entitled to your idea of what is "right"
but i shoot for fun and shooting the same shot all the time is no longer fun to me.
I try to bend the rules to get a shot that will excite me.
So what if i get a technically good shot that everyone else has taken,
it will not be remembered.

I do believe that other than the front legs being OOF
my composition is okay, light is okay, exposure is okay. Don't you think?
or are you talking in general...?

macro shot have no choice but have lots of bokeh, at least in my setup.
although i do have f2.8 lenses i seldom shoot at 2.8, i prefer F16 for better colour.


just like lens flare, using the flare as part of your composition
will give you a stunning shot with "soul"
a shot that speaks to you, gives you the feeling of being there...

anyway cheers to you Mr Jason
I agree to disagree

[mr_jason]

Originally Posted by ortega i think you are mistaken, i normally shoot F16 and smaller. you are entitled to your idea of what is "right" but i shoot for fun and shooting the same shot all the time is no longer fun to me. I try to bend the rules to get a shot that will excite me. So what if i get a technically good shot that everyone else has taken, it will not be remembered. I do believe that other than the front legs being OOF my composition is okay, light is okay, exposure is okay. Don't you think? or are you talking in general...? macro shot have no choice but have lots of bokeh, at least in my setup. although i do have f2.8 lenses i seldom shoot at 2.8, i prefer F16 for better colour. just like lens flare, using the flare as part of your composition will give you a stunning shot with "soul" a shot that speaks to you, gives you the feeling of being there... anyway cheers to you Mr Jason I agree to disagree

If you say you normally shoot f/16 and smaller, then would you say your normal shots lack the 'soul' which you so desire by shooting open and thus achieving more out of focus regions? Maybe we should all do away with our lens hoods so every shot has the chance to have some 'soul' in it. I would like to see how an individual could 'plan' then lens flare into the composition to produce a stunning soulful shot.

I disagree that macro shots must have no choice but to have a lot of bokeh. There is a difference with a lot of bokeh and bokeh in the right places.

While I agree some conventional rules can be broken (eg. rule of thirds), others such as getting a decent image with the correct regions in focus are in fact not rules, but fundemental concepts of photopraghy. Regions which are part of the subject, especially in the front area nearest the lens, should never be out of focus, as these OOF areas will distract the viewer from the image.

Exposure ('light') and composition do look at best, okay. But these are the basics to any photograph. The presence of these 2 alone do not produce a stunning image, but these are just the very basic for the foundation of a decent picture to be built on. In addition to these, sharpness, which seems to be lacking in the 2nd and 3rd pictures, is also one of the fundemental requirements. You can't salvage a shot by USMing during post-processing, when your original image wasen't sharp to begin with. The outcome is very obvious.

I guess the kind of people which used to find it fun taking a memorable technically good shot which adhered to the fundemental principles of photography are fading in the macro section, giving way to more 'abstract' styles which bend the rules.

[ortega]

Mr Jason, get your facts right, I did not say I shoot wide open to get soul. this particular shot is shot at F25 to be exact.

I said that I agree to disagree.
I DO NOT subscribe to your narrow frame of mind.
Are you trying to be a troll? if you are please let me know.
and i will stop being nice.

[mr_jason]

Originally Posted by ortega Mr Jason, get your facts right, I did not say I shoot wide open to get soul. this particular shot is shot at F25 to be exact. I said that I agree to disagree. I DO NOT subscribe to your narrow frame of mind. Are you trying to be a troll? if you are please let me know. and i will stop being nice.

It dosen't matter if you down to f/100, but if you don't move the lens further from the subject, your aperture could be tiny but still have multiple OOF planes. Simple physics. In your case shooting at f/8, f/11 or f/25 would have little/no effect at all on the overall outcome.

As for narrow mindedness, the only reason I reply to your threads because there are many new macro shooters out there, and if they were to follow your 'broad mindedness' (soulful and out of focus shots), then I think it will lead to the demise of the macro section. New shooters have to be made aware of the fundementals of what determines a technically sound macro shot, and not some 'abstract form of macro photography' trying to be passed off as artistic or 'soulful'.

As for being a troll, just please see who's been around longer, and check for the history of my posts, and you'll know my record. I don't troll. Just because you have more posts dosen't make you the authority.

I don't think I have any more to say to you, so I will leave it here. Looking forward to seeing more soulful shots coming up.

[ortega]

i have seen your idea of a "technically sound macro shot" ...

and i wish you all the best in your box

[Garion]

Allow me to input my humble 2 cents of comments...

Originally Posted by ortega i think you are mistaken, i normally shoot F16 and smaller.

From the extremely narrow DOF from your above shots, I am being given the impression that the f-stop is less than f16. Usually f16 is almost enough to get a good portion of the spider in focus, eg first shot the fangs should be in focus but I think they are not. But still I could be mistaken of course. It helps if you could post the EXIF info of your shots so everyone will see and know what settings you used to get the shots.

Quote: you are entitled to your idea of what is "right" but i shoot for fun and shooting the same shot all the time is no longer fun to me. I try to bend the rules to get a shot that will excite me. So what if i get a technically good shot that everyone else has taken, it will not be remembered.

Sure, a technically good shot is probably what everyone aspires to, and it is not easy to achieve it in macro photography. For shooting insects, there are many differerent techniques and approaches, but I believe the main gist is to let the viewer see the insect as it is, i.e. the actual insect in full glorious details, and not just the eye or antennae bits in focus, while the rest of the body is not.

To me, I feel that macro photography is not just all about emphasizing on extreme shallow depth of field, getting as close to the subject as possible, etc. But what I feel is most important in macro photography (and any form of nature photography for that matter) is the passion for the subject, where one aims to capture the natural behaviour of the subject, in as much details as possible. There is a reason why 1:1 macro lenses are made so sharp. Good technical shot? Sure. But what matters most is subject content, something in the picture that makes it grab the viewer's attention. It may be a simple picture of a butterfly basking in the sun or a dramatic one of a praying mantis eating its prey. But what matters most is the details and the way the picture tells the viewer a story. Looking at your shots, sure, they are technically perfect but in the end I think they are just fairly ordinary shots of a spider on a wooden surface, just tilted for variation and all shot with extremely narrow DOF and tight cropping. Thats the general impression I get after viewing your pics.

Quote: I do believe that other than the front legs being OOF my composition is okay, light is okay, exposure is okay. Don't you think? or are you talking in general...?

Nothing wrong with your exposure at all.

Quote: macro shot have no choice but have lots of bokeh, at least in my setup. although i do have f2.8 lenses i seldom shoot at 2.8, i prefer F16 for better colour.

Again, I think you are wrong here. Macro photography does not mean you must have lots of bokeh. Where did you pick up such an idea from? f16 would give you better colour? How on earth did you derive that? If we are speaking purely abt macro lenses, they are sharp both wide open and stopped down, and each lens would have the same colour characteristic regardless of f-stop. Just that the depth of field would be affected by change of f-stop.

Quote: will give you a stunning shot with "soul" a shot that speaks to you, gives you the feeling of being there...

See my statement made previously about "details". If you look closely at the spider with bare naked eyes, would one's eyes achieve such a narrow depth of field in his/her vision? I doubt so. If you want your shots to have "soul", it has to be something uncommon and beautiful or dramatic enough to reach out to the viewer and grab his/her attention. But I do not think shots solely emphasizing extremely limited depth of fields and with such close proximity to the subject classify as shots with "soul".

Ultimately, I feel that the main aim of macro photography is about capturing tiny things that most people would overlook with their eyes and magnifying and bringing out the details of the subject in the best and most accurate way possible.

I hope you do not misinterpret my post as 'flaming' or such, it is just my own views on this matter. As mr_jason said, it is just about defining the context of macro photography to all. If one likes macro photography, one should pursue it because of one's passion and interest in the subject he or she wants to photograph. Be it ants, spiders, flowers, butterflies, etc. But God forbid, one should not not take macro shots just for the sake of achieving "soulful" shots.

On a sidenote, a good and recommended starter reading guide to macro photography for newbies would be books written by John Shaw, especially the book Closeups in Nature.

Cheers and happy shooting.

[ortega]

thanks Garion for your insight
but as i have already mentioned, I have already been there and done that.
it does not excite me anymore.

I agree with you about the subject content, i for one try to get the subject's expression and pose, instead of just a record shot normally found in textbooks.
Previously i also did textbook shot and was told so.
After looking at my images, i noticed that there all start to look the same.
Without "soul" (lack of DOF does not mean that the image have "soul")
Following a formula to getting that textbook - "technically sound macro shot"
will give you the same composition, pose, lighting - more or less.
Take a look at my previous images, my butterfly images started to look
like everyone elses, and a shot form last week and a shot from this week
started to look the same.

It is OK with me if you disagree, after all we are all different and
are entitled to our own views. I respect others and others should not
be try to shove theirs on me. I do not go around telling others that
their pictures look the same as the rest. That is because i know that
they are on their own learning path.

If you guys/gals feel that my images does not conform to the
"technically sound macro shot" and i am misleading others then please
post images of your own to let the others compare for themselves
and decide for themselves what works for them.

I think that you have misread my statements or i have failed to put my view across
clear enough.

I DO NOT think that the lack of DOF WILL give you an image with more SOUL.

I did agree with melvynyeo that i too would have prefered to have the front legs to be in focus, you can find this statement in my reply to melvynyeo on post #4.

I just disagree with mr jason's statement that you cannot use the lack of DOF in macro shots, I find that very narrow minded, and that is a dangerous thing in the creative field.
you can find mr jason's remark on post #5

Narrow DOF is a hurdle in macro photography, it is not a choice, we constantly need to
stop down to get more. But that does not mean that there is no such thing as too mush DOF in macro photography. BGs are still busy and distracting.
The use of DOF control to isolate the subject and blur away the busy bg is still
very much a tool to get nicer images. This is mentioned very much here.

e.g

"Nice clean bg", Smooth and creamy bg"
the same as with the other genre of photography.

Mr Jason seems that he is on a war path to stop alternative thinking
I did mentioned that "I agree to disagree"
you can find this on post #13

Mr Jason did not get his facts right and started to put words into my mouth. (post #14)
this irked me and i reacted accordingly, i will not lock this tread or complain to the mods
as i do feel that a healthy discussion is always good, so i asked him
if he was trying to be a troll b4 i turn nasty.
although i have seen mr jason's image i did not comment on them or refer to them
in a negative manner.

Anyway, post #1 shot of the "fairly ordinary shots of a spider on a wooden surface"
was for the really cute pose that the spider made and it's expression.
I am sure that these are not fairly ordinary? Let me know if you still think so.

BTW I always find your comments well written and a good read
I may or may not agree with them, but a good read none the less.

Cheers to you as well.

[mr_jason]

I just would like to rebut accusations made about me.

Originally Posted by ortega I just disagree with mr jason's statement that you cannot use the lack of DOF in macro shots, I find that very narrow minded, and that is a dangerous thing in the creative field. you can find mr jason's remark on post #5

This has nothing to do with narrow mindedness. I never said you can't use out of focus regions in macro photography. Of course out of focus regions are used to blur the BACKGROUNDS (or any point behind the subject) to get them nice and smooth. But in your case (all posted shots), the out of focus regions I am referring to are those in the foreground and on the subject itself, which leads it to be distracting to me, the viewer.

Originally Posted by ortega Mr Jason seems that he is on a war path to stop alternative thinking I did mentioned that "I agree to disagree" you can find this on post #13

I am not on any sort of war path to stop 'alternate' thinking ot stifle anyone's creativity. But I hate seeing people posting shots that they call 'creative' and 'something different', which are actually results of them not being able to get the initial desired effect.

In the context of this post, firstly you admitted yourself that you would have liked to get the entire spider plus legs in focus, but were not able to, as that would have stifled your creativity. Why could you not have gone further back from the subject. That would have definately made more of the spider in focus plus able to maintain exposure. That way creativity and full focus would have been maintained.

Secondly, I refer to post #13 what lens flare adds soul and creativity. I would really like to see how you plan the lens flare into the composition of your picture, and even achieve the lens flare intentionally. This emphasises my point that this so called 'creativity' is only brought about as an excuse to something which happened or a result that was seen after the shot was taken, and not planned.

Originally Posted by ortega Mr Jason did not get his facts right and started to put words into my mouth. (post #14) this irked me and i reacted accordingly, i will not lock this tread or complain to the mods as i do feel that a healthy discussion is always good, so i asked him if he was trying to be a troll b4 i turn nasty. although i have seen mr jason's image i did not comment on them or refer to them in a negative manner.

Once again, I need to defend myself and state I did not put words in your mouth. I'd like to ask for the community's opinion as to what they thought you meant by more 'soul' in a picture, and if one of the conditions was a very large amout of out of focus region. This is the impression which you conveyed in post #13. Comparing lens flare to shallower depth of field to achieve a more soulful shot is the impression you gave. This quote was from you on post #6

"the shallower DOF is a trade off to get nice light, balanced with the ambient light"

Once again, I would like to state I am not against breaking of any rules or the stifiling of creativity. But when fundementals are broken, and the excuse given was creativity or alternate approaches, then I feel I have to make a comment. Lack of depth means lack of depth, do something to solve it (higher ISO, move further from subject, longer shutter), and not say it was 'creative' or 'soulful'.