My first shot at macro. C&C most appreciated.

[jrt]

right, i am so new it's not funny. so when giving advice please do it in a manner I can understand. I am still learning.
these are my very first attempts at macro.

 

[Ties]

Hi Jrt,
I am also new here. But here's my advise.

Your depth of field is great. (Background blurry, subject in focus), This is called Bokeh.
But the subjects in photo 1 and 4 could use more focus. I believe this has to do with the aperture settings you used.
Try taking several photo's of the same subject with a different aperture. You could also try to set your camera on the Av mode. This way you don't have to adjust the shutter speed.

I like photo 3, great job.

 

[Bukitimah]

Are they on auto focus? I think you did much better than me when I did first macro. You just need to shoot more and try different subjects. More effective in macro is to have contrast. that is, your subject and background be of different color, like black against white thing.

 

[jrt]

Thanks for the feedback ! Photo #1 was really difficult as the leaf the bug was sitting on was swaying in a gnetle breeze ever so slightly, so it came in and out of focus all the time. Looking through the camera it seemed to moving 10 feet with each breeze. I am on manual focus using a Nikkor 60mm Micro lense. I need to just shoot a few 1000 of these to get the hang. Great ideas re: subjects and background colours. Thank you.....practice practice practice....

 

[Destin]

Like them all, but the last one with the flower is underexposed, and lacking contrast/saturation. I did a quick edit in LR3.

Boosted contrast and blacks sliders, and upped the exposure and fill light. Cropped slightly to get it out of dead center of the frame. Added a bit of saturation, and a SLIGHT vignette to draw the viewers eye more towards the flower. Looking at it now, I think I should have upped the exposure a little more, the flower still looks a tad dark to me. I also removed what looks to be a dust spot towards the top of the frame, and added some sharpening and a little noise reduction

 

[jrt]

Thanks for editing that shot, it looks a lot better. here's another one I took today.
I am not sure that all the settings on my camera are correct and I need to look into this as I had terrible trouble today when using the flash with the Micro lense.
But here is the best of the lot I took today. My aim was the reflection in the droplet.

 

[PhotoTish]

I think these are really good especially for your first attempt. I have just ordered a macro lens and I doubt my first attempts will be anywhere near as good. I think you did great :thumbup:

 

[oldmacman]

In addition to the above, be careful with exposure, especially when you are doing a metered average. When you get a lot of light area, like the first pic, the camera attempts to average the scene to 18% grey and ends up looking dark when it is a light scene and too light when it is a dark scene. Here's an exposure correction of +1 EV for the first pic: