Help with Detail

[joyjoy]

I took this image today at the Smithsonian Butterfly Pavilion. This was my second visit and the images are better then my first attempt; but I am still having problems getting the focus right on the butterflies and moths. Some areas are sharp while others are soft. What do I need to do to fix this? I used a 70-300mm telephoto lens with autofocus enabled and shot in auto mode. We are not allowed to bring tripods into the exhibit, and I wonder if that isn't part of the problem. The first time I went I used my 50mm macro lens and ran into the same issue, but it was much worse.

Any help is appreciated.

[SmartWombat]

Your problem is that at that distance you can't focus on the whole subject, just not possible.
Macro lenses when you use them really close up, it gets even worse.

In this case, there is also movement - you see on the left the leaf is blurred left of the point.

Autofocus appears to have found the closest detail in the edge of the leaf and focussed on that. Which puts the whole butterfly behind it out of focus.
I don't understand how it managed that, because usually in dim light that required 1/60 second you would have to use the centre autofocus point to get a lock on the subject.

f/5.6 isn't enough to get good depth of focus, seems you were using a flash?
Use manual mode and set the fastest shutter speed you can and set the aperture to the smallest you can within the range of the flash.
f/10 will make a great difference.

[joyjoy]

Your problem is that at that distance you can't focus on the whole subject, just not possible.
Macro lenses when you use them really close up, it gets even worse.

In this case, there is also movement - you see on the left the leaf is blurred left of the point.

Autofocus appears to have found the closest detail in the edge of the leaf and focussed on that. Which puts the whole butterfly behind it out of focus.
I don't understand how it managed that, because usually in dim light that required 1/60 second you would have to use the centre autofocus point to get a lock on the subject.

f/5.6 isn't enough to get good depth of focus, seems you were using a flash?
Use manual mode and set the fastest shutter speed you can and set the aperture to the smallest you can within the range of the flash.
f/10 will make a great difference.

Thank you! I am planning to head back there next week and will try doing what you have suggested. Hopefully the images will turn out better.

[freygr]

I took this image today at the Smithsonian Butterfly Pavilion. This was my second visit and the images are better then my first attempt; but I am still having problems getting the focus right on the butterflies and moths. Some areas are sharp while others are soft. What do I need to do to fix this? I used a 70-300mm telephoto lens with autofocus enabled and shot in auto mode. We are not allowed to bring tripods into the exhibit, and I wonder if that isn't part of the problem. The first time I went I used my 50mm macro lens and ran into the same issue, but it was much worse.

Any help is appreciated.

You have better luck with Manual Focusing your photos when you take micro photos. Also you need to under stand the depth of field.

My PS was a high end camera in 2000 and has Manual Focusing ( Olympus C-3030 ) and since the lens is a short 8-32 mm (about) 4x zoom. Since is has the short lens if has a lot of DOF, so it takes great micro photos. And it will always beat the DSLR in the exposure times in micro photography.

To get more DOF 1) you have to stop down the lens. Or 2) you can use a shorter lens and get closer to the subject, and note #1 still applies.

[Grandpaw]

My suggestion would be to experiment at your house on subjects that far away and work out the answer there and not wait until you go back to get the pictures you want. Have the problem solved before you go back and blow another opportunity, Jeff

[Loupey]

I agree about manual focusing - you have to really nail the focus (typically on the head/eyes) or it all falls apart.

The DOF is important, but it won't help if the head/eyes are still not in peak sharpness.


If you do stop down and use flash, your background will go dark so plan to increase your ISO to compensate.

[Loupey]

BTW, you don't always have to have maximum DOF. You have to consider the what you want to show verses the how you want to show it. Often the "what" is only a small portion of the butterfly.

And sometimes the butterfly is flat enough (like when the wings are folded up) that you frankly don't need to stop down that much.


I've had good results using f/5.6 and f/6.7 with both a 180mm macro and 300mm lenses (with extension tubes) by just keying in on exactly what I want to show. But it definitely takes manual focus to do it quickly and precisely on "what" you want to show.

[joyjoy]

Thanks for the additional info. I did go back and got some better images. I have also been asking my fiance for flowers so I could practice more. Things are slowly starting to make more sense, but I still make foolish mistakes with the settings on my camera.

[Ron Kruger]

You have received some good advice here. The truth is you are handicapped by the slowness of your lens (poor light-gatherng capabilities), so one thing I would suggest in addition to all this good advice is to increase the amount of light on the subject. I've found that flash doesn't work very well at such close distances, especially cheaper flashes, so try introducing a steady stream of light concentrated on your subject from an outside source. A powerful flashlight helps a lot, and the best trick I've used is to hold a hand mirror off to the side so it concentrates sunlight directly upon the subject.
When your lens can't gather a lot of light, the simplest and most effective way I've found is to add more light to the subject. More light will allow you to choose a better f-stop for more depth-of-field, and a higher shutter speed for sharpness.
It's all about available light.

[Sushigaijin]

You have two things you can do to get more focus: back away from the critter (make the critter smaller in the frame) or increase the f/number. Both of these things will in make the depth of field larger, which means that more of the subject will be in focus. A different lens won't help regardless of the lens focal length or speed. At F/5.6 (as shot) all lenses have the same depth of field at this magnification.

A different lens might give you more detail though - a specialized macro lens can pull more detail from the same amount of depth of field, so the in-focus areas will have more detail.

However, focus and detail won't really help this shot because it's suffering from motion blur - the camera is shaking too much for a crisp shot to be taken. You can tell because nothing is in very good focus.

To combat this, you can increase the shutter speed or increase the stability of the camera. Using a shorter focal length (50mm is MUCH shorter) will help reduce shake as well...but at macro magnifications shake is ALWAYS a problem at any focal length.

A reflector, as Ron suggested, is a good idea. Anything that can bounce some of the available light back onto the subject. The downside is that you won't get much of an improvement doing this alone - there is only so much light in the area, and a reflector won't actually create any more. You might get up to 1/100s (in the same light) with a reflector, but that's pretty slow for a 300mm lens. Still, every little bit helps.

You can also try to brace the camera against something. Since they don't allow tripods, try a tree, or the wall, or a bench, or anything solid. The object is to get that camera as still as possible.

A powerful direct flash will help too. In your shot, the flash isn't powerful enough to overpower the ambient light. That's why there is some ghosting present on the sharp edges; the flash froze some of the action but not all of it.

A flash fires at a rate measured in thousanths of a second, so a flash-only lit shot is exposed for only thousanths of a second - MUCH faster than an ambient light shot at hundredths of a second. (yours is at 1/60s, one sixtieth.)

The problem with flash is that a flashed shot often looks flashed. Getting finesse out of a flash takes practice.

In summery, try some stabilization techniques. It's the easiest way to improve this shot, and it will benefit your skill in ALL aspects of photography.

[mn shutterbug]

Even though they won't allow tripods, they will more than likely allow a monopod. A monopod won't get in other people's way or possibly cause an accident, which is what they are probably concerned about.

[joyjoy]

This is awesome, I continue to be blown away by how much I am learning from all of you. I did acquire (permanently borrowed) a monopod from my fiance. I am going to ask if it would be allowed. I am also going to work on finessing my flash, that will be one more trick in my bag, especially since for now I have to work with what I have.

[mn shutterbug]

If it were me, I wouldn't even ask. If the rules state that tripods are not allowed, I'd bring in the monopod and worry about possible repercusions later. Otherwise, the person you ask, may not even know what a monopod is, and to play it safe, will say no. The worst that can happen is they ask you to take it back out to the car. It's likely that no one will even notice.

[Sushigaijin]

I agree, I wouldn't ask either. Just show up with it and see if they notice.

Here's a thread with a couple of ideas for your flash.

Pill bottle diffuser

Try setting the exposure manually at f/8 and 1/200s. Shot with flash, it should be sharp. It will be a little "flat" looking because of the full-frontal flash, but it's a start!