DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

How to focus on folwers? (entry level)

Started Feb 1, 2019 | Questions thread
JimH123 Veteran Member • Posts: 3,885
Re: How to focus on folwers? (entry level)

Jan0048 wrote:

Hi .

I'm Jan, a new entry level photographer.

I need to know how to How to focus on flowers? because I have tried to take a macro photo but not to sharp of all.

Please give me some comment of my sample.

Nikon D3200

AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G

A 1/3 f 5.6 ISO 100 manual focus

no process on computer (resize only)

Thank you very much.

Jan,

Do you have a lens with a longer focal length? You are using a 40mm lens in macro mode and attempting to photograph an object that is quite large in size, It is impossible to capture a sharp image under these conditions.

Also, your ISO is quite low (100) and the shutter time is quite slow (1/3 sec). A flower like this is going to be moving around even if the wind is really low. You need to get the shutter speed higher.

What some people will do is to have something with an alligator clip on the end that can be used to anchor the flower just out of view of the camera so the flower can't move very much.

Another trick is to take many pictures changing the focus in little steps and to then assemble in the computer later. Note: Some cameras can do this in camera.

The following is an example using a 300mm f2.8 lens at f8, 1/320 sec and ISO 200 on a crop sensor camera, Sony A77ii, which means that the apparent field of view was the same as a 450mm lens. It is also cropped somewhat. Since the focal length is longer, I can be much farther from the flower and the depth of field is wide enough to include much more of the flower.

I also processed this image with Topaz AI Clear, which I find can sharpen even parts of the image that are only a little bit out of focus.

The result is that the entire flower is in focus.

 JimH123's gear list:JimH123's gear list
Nikon Coolpix P1000 Sony RX100 VII Olympus E-M5 II Sony a6300 Olympus E-M1 II +2 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow