Tiny Tuesday Week #62

Thanks so much to all of you for your wonderful response to my macro dragonfly yesterday.  I am also grateful that some of you found my first tip about shooting insects helpful.  Please know that I am not an expert.  I have only been at this a couple of years and am pretty much self-taught.  I only know my gear, so when you apply some of my suggestions to your gear, your mileage may vary.  If any of you real experts have anything to add please feel free to comment and I will incorporate it into the next blip with credit.
  
Yesterday I talked about knowing your minimum focus distance for your lens so you can focus faster and more accurately, which is important with insects who rarely cooperate.  That info can be found here. 
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Tip#2: Shoot with a fast shutter speed. When shooting insect macros handheld, use at the very least the minimum shutter speed for the focal length of your lens to prevent soft images from camera shake.   

This isn’t so hard for macro lenses, but it can be more difficult when using telephoto lenses.  This is the formula to calculate your minimum shutter speed.

       For full frame cameras:   1/focal length.  
      For APS-C or micro four thirds sensors:  1/focal length multiplied the                    by crop factor.  

The crop factor accounts for the change of view in your lens because of a smaller sensor than full frame size and gives you a full frame equivalent focal length.  For Nikon and Sony APS-C cameras, the crop factor is 1.5,  for Canon APS-C, it is1.6, for Micro 4/3’s camera, it is 2.0.   If you have a 1 inch sensor, your crop factor is 2.7 as in the Sony RX100 compact camera series.  If you have a bridge camera or point and shoot, I am not sure how or if any of this applies. If someone knows, please feel free to chime in.  

For example, when I use my 400mm lens  (handheld) on a Sony APS-C camera, I use a minimum of 1/640s shutter speed. (1/400 x 1.5=600). This often means I have to open my aperture and adjust my ISO so that I can get proper exposure. It helps to shoot in manual.  I have tried to cut back to 1/500 on some occasions and find it quite hard to get a sharp image. And, of course, if your critter is moving or flying, your shutter speed needs to be even faster. 

Just remember, if you are trying to focus on a tiny little subject, the slightest movement by the critter or the photographer can mean a soft image.  When I am shooting macro, I never go below that minimum shutter speed for that lens.  

Tip #3:  Shoot in good light so you can use the lowest ISO possible

This just makes everything so much easier.  Some people use ring lights or flash but I have no experience with that and can't speak to it.  I just choose to work when I have good light and this makes it possible to achieve the fastest shutter speed at the lowest ISO and best aperture for desired depth of field and soft background.

Tomorrow (Weds) I will write about how I approach focusing and shooting and on Thursday I hope to finish up with some tips on post-processing for subtle adjustments that can make your critters pop without looking over done. 
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This little Dark Sweat Bee is only about 1/2 inch long and this was taken with a 90 mm macro lens + 16 and 10 mm extension tubes. 

If you haven’t glazed over by now, please remember to tag your macro and close-up images with TT62.  I hope to post my favorites on Thursday, depending on how many there are. Thanks for all you have joined in and have had the patience to read my ramblings.