Macro insects - help needed

[Kyuss]

Great pictures. I have been working on my Macros as well and looking at the first fly pic, it seems like that at f13 wo/teleconverter, your images would have had a lot more DOF.

I have a 90mm and I couldn't even imagine my DOF being any shallower than it is. Just need more light to get closer. Thats my next purchase, is a flash.

 

[tpe]

There are also a couple of other reasons not to use a tc, if you are working at f13 on the camera then your effective f stop becomes f 26, and because you have doubled the focal length of your lens the dof does not increas from the original lens with no tc at f 13. So you have half the light that makes the chance of shake go up, you have double the f stop which makes the chance of diffraction go up which definatly a problem at everything over about f 16 on your lens (you do have the dedicated macro ?). So avoid using the tc when possile, just move in closer. Your lighting looks pretty good, your flash has not produced nasty white areas, perhaps without the tc the closeness will make itworse, in which case use a diffuser on it (even a plastic bag held over with a rubber band will help. If you want to keep the background oof you will also get much betterbokeh just by reducing the apperture size. That said you are using exactly the right method, put the camera on MF, the lens at 1:2 or 1:1 and move backwards and forwards untill you get the eye in focus is great. What you might want to do is try a larger apperture, f8 or 11 or even f 5.6 at 1:2 and then look for some subjects with light distant backgrounds and try that to get the effect you want.

tim

 

[Overread]

Thank you for the help = I think its time I bit the bullet and shot macro without 300mms - I will post back with what I get as results.
I think I will still use the TC for macro work, just that I will religate it to mostly working with photo stacking trips - where a fine depth of field won't be a limitation.
Now can some one send the sun to Engand for me please