[iGiDK]

Decided to buy a shiny new Canon EF 100mm f2.8 Macro USM the other day. I am very impressed with its build quality and handling.

I tried it out for the first time tonight by blitzing through as much random household items as I could in my daily half hour window of peace when our maniac dog is out for his walk.

All were taken using my no-frills lightbox, the flash wasn't used in each of these shots below as I was finding the on-board flash too harsh at times, instead I reverted to the tripod and longer exposures. (Really want a speedlite now )

Any comments / criticism welcome.

Let's start off with the intial crappy ones:

[iGiDK]

Getting a little more confident now with the lighting, aperture and manual focus:

[iGiDK]

And finally here's a few attempts that were meant to be a little more abstract:

All in all I'm rather pleased with the amount of keepers given the half hour timeframe, if anyone is thinking about getting this lens I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it based on my initial playtime.

Can't wait for the next macro shoot!

[alj23]

wow those are fantastic - the colour is amazing

[salubrious_k]

Great shots. I particularly like the 2nd and 3rd and then the two of the forks.

What lighting did you use? Do you have a flash? (I don't ) I really want to try this myself as soon as I get the time as I recently got the same lens but have only used it for a flower shooting spree so far.

I'll definitely add my recommendations to yours - it really is a superb lens!

[iGiDK]

Thanks guys,

salubrious, I've got a really cheap soft lightbox which you can pick up from maplins for a bargain £9.99 (I paid £20 for mine) - there was a thread on here a while ago from Yandros which inspired me to get this rig set up.

I just use a couple of desklamps on each side of the box for lighting, don't use a flash as the onboard Canon flash is far too harsh for my liking.

Might try and get a Speedlite 580EX if it comes down in price by a few ££ once the 580EX mkII is released

The lightbox:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...38260&doy=18m1

[salubrious_k]

Thanks! That looks great. Hmmm... there's a Maplin in Camden Town where I work... tempting!

[iGiDK]

I couldn't recommend it highly enough to be honest, for such a low price and with a little improvisation with the backgrounds you can have a lot of fun.

A couple of examples:

[salubrious_k]

How do the latter two examples work? Obviously their background colours seem different to the white light I would expect to see

[iGiDK]

#1 Just using a white cardboard 12" record mailer as the background - the PP has given it a slightly cooler tone. Both desklamps used.

#2 Black cardboard for background, subjects placed on an A4 sized mirror for the reflection in the foreground. The 2 desklamps were used. If I remember correctly the shot was deliberately slightly underexposed to make the black background 'blacker' and then did a little tweaking in photoshop with an S shaped curve to darken it even more.

#3 Tilted the lightbox so that the white nylon panels were all orientated vertically and placed a tealight candle outside the box resulting in the warm coloured background and the silhouette in the foreground, again, this one was underexposed slightly to darken the subject and promote the warmth of the background colours. No desklamps used this time.

[BananaTiger]

Wow, that lightbox from Maplins seems a bargain! Probably check out Maplins this lunchtime too

[Yandros]

Superb results! I can see I'm going to have to play some more with it to try to keep up with you

Here's my original thread showing, including the shopping list of kit.

ultra cheap macro studio

Dirt cheap, even including the lights.

[bowenjones]

I think I've found my next lens
Cracking shots iGiDK

[iGiDK]

A few more from this evening:

I love this lens!

[vulkan75]

When I saw the title to this thread I couldnt wait to see what it was about."Raiding drawers"

The peppers and glass shot are excellent

[Yandros]

Wow!!! Just getting better and better. I love the chillis and icewater in particular.

Just so Canon doesn't claim all the limelight, I've been wandering around the garden with the Nikon 105VR Macro (all handheld in natural light)...

Macros are sooo addictive

[iGiDK]

Addictive indeed

Those two are lovely, I've not had a chance to get out in the garden with the new lens due to the crap weather up here this weekend.

How close were you (roughly) to your two subjects and did you use a flash?

Just asking as I noticed they were both 1/200 @ ISO-200, I've not been able to get anywhere near that indoors with my lens, most of my marco exposures in this thread were >2secs (no flash)

[Yandros]

Originally Posted by iGiDK

Addictive indeed

Those two are lovely, I've not had a chance to get out in the garden with the new lens due to the crap weather up here this weekend.

How close were you (roughly) to your two subjects and did you use a flash?

Just asking as I noticed they were both 1/200 @ ISO-200, I've not been able to get anywhere near that indoors with my lens, most of my marco exposures in this thread were >2secs (no flash)

They were taken at about 1ft away I think, and with no flash (without something like a ringflash, flash+macro=BAD ).I had to sit and wait for breaks in the cloud, but that bit of sun makes a huge difference to the colours. Don't be too suprised about the shutter speeds - full sun vs overcast will be 1/200th+ vs 1/60th or less. Indoors, as you say, you're looking at exposures of seconds once you stop down. The other thing to point out though is that the primulas were shot pretty much wide open, (f3.2) as I was playing around with the red/green bokeh in the background. With a black or white background you can stop it way down and it doesn't make any difference, but with plants in a flowerbed, the trick is isolating the subject vs keeping enough in focus (still working on that part). This obviously gave me higher shutter speeds to play with.

Talking of sun, one tip for flower macros outdoors is try sun and shade versions, as summer sun can be a nightmare, and can end up with evil shadows and blown highlights. If you catch it right it's lovely, but it's a bit hit and miss. Shaded results are flat, but predictable.

For example (from my old 5700)

[Radiohead]

You two owe me £300 by the way.