Red Peony Macro

The peonies are gone this year, but the shots live on. The depth of filed here is narrower than I would like, even allowing for the difficulties getting a wide DOF that I discussed last week. This would be a bit better if I had closed the aperture down a bit more (this is at f/11), but I was experimenting. This is the result and there are enough elements here that I like to run with it.

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This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Len Saltiel

    4 Jun 2012

    Beautifully composed with great color Mark

  2. Chris Nitz

    4 Jun 2012

    Nice light and I like the little shadows of the water drops through the pedals. How do you like the 200 micro btw? I keep debating trying to get a longer lens for macro work so I can put some nice distance between me and my subjects.
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    1. Mark

      4 Jun 2012

      Thanks all for the comments and as for Chris’s question, I am pleased with the 200mm micro. I do not have experience with shorter lengths for comparison, but I can describe my experiences. The obvious benefits of 200 over shorter lengths is you can stay a bit further from the subject, as Chris mentioned. This helps for both critters and keeping out of your own light.
      The negative (assuming I have the physics right) is that changing your composition requires extremely minute adjustments. This is true of all macros but is even more extreme for long lenses. A move to recompose that requires a left or right shift of 1/4 inch on a 50mm would need be 1/16 inch on the 200mm (again, assuming I’ve got the physics right, of which I’m reasonably but not 100% sure). I bought a cheap but sturdy focusing rail from Adorama hat helps considerably with this.
      http://www.adorama.com/MCFRS1.html
      As for this specific lens, I found manual focusing very easy, although there was a bit of a learning curve. The auto focus is close to useless. When you are out of focus, you are extremely out of focus, to the point that you just see an indecipherable blob that looks the same as when you look through a camera that has no lens on it. And it does not get better gradually. You turn the focus and until you get very close to the focus point it looks the same and then suddenly the subject goes from being a blob to almost in focus with no transition. Until I figured this out, which took a few minutes, I almost thought I bought a defective copy of the lens. Now it doesn’t bother me at all. It is also a very sharp lens, in m opinion.

  3. Jim Denham

    4 Jun 2012

    Maybe, but I like the dof as is. Really makes the foreground petals jump out at you! Great reds!
    Jim Denham recently posted..Straight UpMy Profile

  4. Mark Neal

    4 Jun 2012

    I actually like your DOF in this shot, Mark. The background is interesting without overpowering the foreground details.

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