Share your Macro Photos

[lindam]

Have you captured an awesome macro photo? Post it here and share the story behind the shot. Be sure to include the Canon gear you used. This photo was captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens at f/5, 1/160 sec, ISO 100.

[ebiggs1]

It was in the garden.  Probably looking for some bugs to eat.  This was a few years ago before the drought. I was looking for something else and run across this.

Do you have a 150-600mm super zoom?  Which one, they are all very good.

[AndyMilnePhotog]

I do not own one, I'm afraid since it's to expensive for me. However, I have a 55-250mm IS STM zoom that is part of a T6i bundle I purchased 1 1/2 - 2 years ago. Does a good job for me so far. 🙂

[AndyMilnePhotog]

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T6i

Lens: 50mm f1.8 STM

Shutter Speed: 1/320

Aperture: f2.8

ISO: 250

Focal Length: 50mm

[ebiggs1]

That is cool.  

"I have a 55-250mm IS STM zoom"

Don't under estimate that lens it is one of the best ef-s lenses.

A 150-600mil zoom can be in your future, just save up for a bit.  You can even check the used market.  They are pretty tough lenses and most folks buy them and don't use it a whole lot.  Man, on a T6i you are talking some serious FL approaching 1000mm.  That'll take some getting used to!

[fatcat]

May I ask about this

"Man, on a T6i you are talking some serious FL approaching 1000mm"  Is this b.c of the sensor size?

[diverhank]

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@fatcat wrote:

May I ask about this

"Man, on a T6i you are talking some serious FL approaching 1000mm"  Is this b.c of the sensor size?

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Hi fatcat...basically yes.  When they say a lens is, say, 600mm focal length, the image through that lens would have fit a full frame sensor (24mm x 36mm ).  So when this lens is used with a cropped sensor (14.8mm x 22.2mm), the cropped sensor only picks up the center part of the image, in effect, has magnified the original image by the ratio, in this case by1.6 times (APS-C).  So the T6i with a cropped sensor will see a larger image as if from a 600x1.6 = 900mm focal length.  I will use an image I took to illustrate this...the smallest yellow rectangle shows the APS-C cropped sensor, the second yellow rectangle shows the 1.3 cropped (APS-H).  The outer yellow rectangle shows the full frame sensor.

[fatcat]

I guess that could eliminate any cropping later.  thanks for your detailed answer, it was helpful

[diverhank]

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@fatcat wrote:

I guess that could eliminate any cropping later.  thanks for your detailed answer, it was helpful

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This is another topic entirely 🙂 when you talk about cropping.  If you use, say a 24 Megapixel full frame camera to take an image of a hummingbird like the picture I used earlier and crop it by 1.6 ratio to make the image as magnified as taken by a 24 Megapixel cropped sensor camera, your image quality will be so much worse because you lose a lot of pixels in the process of cropping.

For this reason, when I need more reach, I'd use my 7D mark II, a cropped sensor camera and use a full frame for most everything else. 

[fatcat]

Diverhank,

Ah HA! ok, I totally get the Crop factor and getting a little more reach.  And yes, cropping after will decrease the pixils for that image (agreed). I've been reading recently with the new mirrorless with even more pixils in same amt of space can actually look worse  and create more noise noticable when enlarging (for print usually)   The rational for that is they dont have enough light (or room) in that same allotted area and it reads as noise.. So there can actually be too many pixels....I thought it was interesting and contrarty to what I believed.

Id love to hear your thoughts on that.  Just for fun.

I have the baby brother of your camera (new to me) 70D and Im loving all the options. my SL1 feels like a toy now to me. lol   I hope that means Im improving (even if just a little)  Thanks for your help.  It is GREATLY appreciated.  

Cant wait to try the dbl exp option.  Havent hooked up the wifi or GPS yet.  (need to do more reading, lol)

[Waddizzle]

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@fatcat wrote:

Diverhank,

Ah HA! ok, I totally get the Crop factor and getting a little more reach.  And yes, cropping after will decrease the pixils for that image (agreed).

I've been reading recently with the new mirrorless with even more pixils in same amt of space can actually look worse  and create more noise noticable when enlarging (for print usually)   

The rational for that is they dont have enough light (or room) in that same allotted area and it reads as noise.. So there can actually be too many pixels....I thought it was interesting and contrarty to what I believed.

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My analogy to an ice cube tray may explain the apparent higher noise levels.  

An image sensor is covered with millions of of photosites.  Drawing on the rainfall comparison, each photosite collects a volume of water.  How much water gets collected depends upon the intensity of the rainfall, and how long rainfall was collected.  

Suppose you want to measure the amount of water that was collected, so you pore it onto a scale to weigh it.  But, a small volume of water remains behind in the cup, and gets “lost”.  A larger cup will leave a similar volume of water behind, but that lost volume is a smaller percentage of the total volume of water collected in the cup.

It works almost the same way with photosites collecting light.  There is a “noise floor” in the electronics.  This is a point where a small amount of collected light cannot be differentiated from noise.  

Suppose a small photosite can collect 1000 photons, but the first 100 are lost to noise.  A larger photosite may collect 1500, or more, photons, but the same level of noise, the first 100 photons, are lost to noise.  The larger photosites would have a higher signal-to-noise ratio than a smaller photosite.  

Notice that I have not made any mention of the size of the image sensor, because the size of the sensor is irrelevant.  What matters is the size of the photosites, the spacing between them, and the residual noise of the electronics.