What do ya think?

[Mr Bales]

Working with new lens and looking for opinions and suggestions. Do you think I'm close? Still need to get a remote trigger, less than half of what I shot was even presentable and definately not sharp enough. Don't forget to click on the pic for full image.

[chucks_mibs]

Very nice....whats your weapon of choice? is it canon, nikon or neither?

[Mr Bales]

Thanks Chuck! Small frame Canon, Rebel XTi. The lens is a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro. Far from a pro, but I know just enough to get me in trouble.....LOL!

These were taken with screened lighting, F18, 100 ISO. I only had about 2 hours to play with so not to much fiddling around. When I get my remote, I'll bump up the F-stop a bit. Do you have any suggestions? I've seen you answer other photo questions before and you seem fairly knowledgable.

[bubba1]

awesome......i think i can see some individual molecules in there!

[chucks_mibs]

Here is a suggestion, put a dark backdrop behind the marble and then try using only one light source .......place the light source far enough away to only see a tiny "pin light" reflection on the marble.....f18 is good for the stop......then adjust your shutter speed until you get "center metering" in the viewfinder (a tripod is a must). Keeping good distance, play with the position of the lighting to get the best total illumination across the marble before snapping. Check out this post using a single light source

[Mr Bales]

I will definately give that a try, thanks!

I was looking over all the photos I've shot so far and although the magnification is right where I want to be, and the colors are dead on, the surface seems to be more muted. It's almost like a matte finish. These marbles are all wet with high gloss. Is this just a side effect of shooting so close-up or can it be corrected?

[chucks_mibs]

Those lens settings should allow for the shuttertime to be open long enough to require a tripod but not enough for a wider depth of field (DOP = is a narrow area of things in front of and in the back of your subject matter that are in focus). To widen the DOF, try turning your canons menu wheel to TV (shutter speed priority) and set your shutter speed for 1 second or more then "center meter" the dial in the camera viewfinder before snapping the picture. If you do this, you will find that a wider range of the subject matter will be in focus.
As a side note, looking at your pics above you will notice on the bottom of each marble and in crystal clear detail, you can see reflections of the threads which your marbles are resting............ I think if you focus "out" a hair farther and/or increase your depth of field area, you will see the marbles detail a lot better as well.

[FeelinMarbleous]

Sont Cyber Shot isn't to shabby IMHO





I myself like using two light sources, i think it depends on the user, when you get one light pulled back so far to where the reflection is the size of a pin head, you tend to not get inside the marble so much, of course this is all IMHO

[chucks_mibs]

i like two light sources also.....sometimes three....however, whatever the available light source used its the control of shutter speed and aperature settings that always enhance the quality and clarity of the pictures. I have received several fantastic results using only the light setup below .......Two clip-on wire flex lights from the dollar store and a dark surface to rest the marble on



The popeye pics below show good inside detail because of the wide depth of field range

[FeelinMarbleous]

Are those little LED's Chuck? i started with those and had some pretty good results, heres some of my earlier pics..









Now the shutter speed part is maybe something that is Auto on the Point and Shoots ? i may look into that, i usually use Manual settings, all but the ISO i let it go Auto, those little clip lights worked pretty well for me, i wound up buying some with regular little bulbs at first and they gave everything a yellow cast and then went with the LED's which gave everything i pretty accurate color.....

[chucks_mibs]

Kevin, those are some nice pics...the white balance feature on most cameras can be used to compensate for the incorrect lighting hues while using any light source (flourescent or incandescent)......check this post I created last year on the subject.

[catfish]

Originally Posted by Mr Bales

Thanks Chuck! Small frame Canon, Rebel XTi. The lens is a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro. Far from a pro, but I know just enough to get me in trouble.....LOL!

These were taken with screened lighting, F18, 100 ISO. I only had about 2 hours to play with so not to much fiddling around. When I get my remote, I'll bump up the F-stop a bit. Do you have any suggestions? I've seen you answer other photo questions before and you seem fairly knowledgable.

Not far from pro in image quality though. The XTi has a fantastic sensor in it (I used to own one), and the 100mm 2.8 macro is likely the sharpest lens I own.



Glad to see a fellow Canon user!


edit~ also wanted to say, fantastic photos so far! If you are looking for a remote, I recommend the RC-1 (if I recall correctly). The little IR one. Canon's newer bodies are starting to use it again as well. I had one for my XTi and now it works on my 5DII as well.
As a side note, I wouldn't shoot any smaller that f18. Thats about the limit before diffraction. If you need a little more depth of field, you are better off to back away from the marble a little. More working distance= greater depth of field, then crop your images. You can heavily crop that XTi 10mp image and have it look great, especially if all you are doing is posting them online. And I would not worry about shooting up to 400 ISO with that rebel. It starts getting noisy around 800 ISO. that will give you faster shutter speeds &/or smaller apertures.


edit~ I use hotshoe flash for the following reasons....great light quality with consistant color, adjustable light output, and you can handhold the camera in most situations if you want to because you can sync up to 1/250 of a second on the rebel (if I recall correctly).