Focusing?

[Ishie]

Hi all!!

Finally got my new 5060 from DEPP and did my first dives with the new housing (which I like). Still absolutely loving the camera and happy with a number of the shots, while looking to pick up a DS-50 to start on it.

My question...

I really like doing macro photography and I've been playing with it a lot. Eventually I'm looking at getting the Inon lens, but in the meantime, I'm playing with the macro modes.

Problem is when I'm trying to focus in on something, I'm getting a lot of blurry stuff, and I'm not exactly sure how to set stuff up so that doesn't happen so much. It's not a motion blur, but an out-of-focus blur. I'm partially depressing the button so the camera will autofocus, though the rest of the settings are manual. I've also tried using the "P mode" to see if the pix would be clearer. I've tried supermacro mode with the internal flash on slave mode, but the pictures still seem to be dark, even when I turn up the flash intensity.

I know the camera can focus in very closely, because I've had some success with cup corals, strawberry anemones, and extreme close ups on urticina tentacles. The main place I'm having trouble is nudibranchs, particularly the smaller ones, so I'm not sure if there's something about those little critters that's problematic. I took a number of pictures of T. festiva last weekend, and the best were still pretty grainy/blurry, but the lesser number of close ups on equivalently sized strawberry anemones came out crystal clear. Oh, the only exception to the nudibranch curse is the rainbow nudis, and I think it's because they're huge.

Any suggestions for more reliable focusing? I'm learning, but I'm still quite new at a lot of the camera stuff, not having been anything of a land photographer.

 

[Wolverine]

Ok, first thing is to set focus mode at spot focus, instead of letting the camera focus on the nearest item (iESP mode). That way, it will focus on the object in the centre of the shot (or wherever u direct the camera). Also, in macro mode, the distance is not as near as super-macro. So u might need to move the camera back a bit to get focus. Also, nudis are not flat. So when u focus, u need to pick a spot. Depth of field in macro and supermacro is very small. So it is unlikely to get complete focus on the whole slug.

For example.. the gills are in focus for the pic below, but not the body:

Similarly, the focus in the bottom pic is the face.. the back is a little blur.

Hope this helps

 

[Ishie]

Thanks! Those are gorgeous. What mode did you use to take these, and were you using the macro lens?

 

[Wolverine]

I was using Inon UCL165 with those.. These were using straight macro..

I had to crop these quite a bit (they were from a 3mb camera)... so detailing is not great. When using straight macro, the camera was at least 12inches from the object, at full zoom. Focussing is definitely more difficult. There are a lot of shots that were blur cos the camera was focussing on some other thing. I guess the closer you get, the easier to target focus, esp in moving water.

 

[jlyle]

In "macro" mode you can't be closer than eight inches to the subject for correct focus. Using the zoom, in this mode, you narrow the depth of field so much that it's almost impossible to get a clear image.

In "supermacro" mode, you can't be closer than ~1 inch to the subject for correct focus.

With the macro lens adapters, focus can only be achieved in a narrow range of 2-3 inches away from the subject.

I've found the best way to get more close-up images correctly in focus is, as Wolverine says, use "spot", move the camera in towards the subject until the LCD begins to clear up, then half press for AF, and take the picture. The more of the subject you get in the plane of focus, the more will be in focus - depth of field is very narrow in supermacro or when using macro lens adapters.

Additional light helps AF - use a spotting or modeling light!

 

[orangeBloke]

Ishie, I know what you mean about the focus, I've had that problem in the past.

The things that I've found that throw the macro and super macro out of focus are being too close or too far away from the subject. Sometimes if you get in too near the camera doesn't do a good job on focusing but pulling back and inch or two can make the world of difference. Similarly being too far away, especially in super macro mode, will result in out of focus images.
I usually, time permitting, take a shot or two on normal auto focus so that in the worst case I have something to remember the critter by and with 5 mega pixes you can still see them fairly clearly in when you get home so all won't be lost

 

[fins]

Hi Ishie,

This may be completely unrelated to the problem you describe but I ran into a similar problem last December in the Turks & Caicos. Many of my close up pics has a section out of focus or blurred. It turns out that my strobe setting on the camera were not set properly. I don't remember exactly what wrong but I do have the resolution written down at home. If this may be of any help please feel free to pm me.

 

[Ishie]

Thanks for the advice!!! I'm getting a strobe before this next trip, so I'm hoping to get things to work better, though I still did get some shots I'm pleased with, including a couple nudis, though I'm bummed about the festivas.