Just got an S3. A bit slow, but here's my try. Haven't got the chance to bring my camera out. So took this at home.
I like macro, especially nature. Can anyone teach me some tips?
I tried taking a shot of a gecko at home, but it ran away from me. :sweatsm: How do you guys get soooo close, and yet the creature doesn't run? :dunno:
So many things to say..... Actually, GeckoZ and boogle have covered some of the stuff.
A few things to look out for:
Focus: Best to focus on the eyes. Ensuring correct focus with the LCD is a pain though. You can try focus bracketting. Or you get a shot, refocus, get another shot. Do this a few times. Its a pain, but it does get you a few good shots out of the thirty you took.
Depth of Field (DOF): When shooting macro, the DOF is really thin. This means that the area under sharp focus is quite small. So if the subject is focused but you make a slight movement before firing the shutter, the picture will come out focused at the wrong point. This happens to me very very often. What you can do is set your aperture to f8.0. This gives the most DOF.
(Only probelm is, this is not the sharpest aperture for the lens. I normally shoot at f4.0.) However, this also lets in the least amount of light, which leads us to the next point.
Lighting: To get 'frozen' pictures of insects & other living things, you need a fast shutter speed. To get a fast speed, you need lots of light. Which means bright sunlight, or an artificial source of light. "So I can use the flash!" you may say. That might not work, as the lens casts a shadow when the flash is used. I have a flash diffuser, it works for macro most of the time. Or you can get an external slave flash. The advantage of this is that you can light the subject from a different direction then your camera. Makes for interesting pictures if done well. You can also have a reflector on the opposite side of the subject from your slave flash. This will provide more even lighting.
Ill add more stuff slowly.... need to go have my dinner now.
Happy shooting! Post your pictures here, people are friendly and try not to scream at your photos. :bsmilie: