E-PL5 + 60mm macro practice

Guy,

Nice macro shot. I too am currently playing practising with my 60mm macro and off camera flash.

I hope you don't mind if pick your brains about your technique.

Did you use the flash TTL (with/without compensation) or did you go for manual control?

What do you do about white balance? I must admit I tend to leave it on auto and use Lightroom to adjust it if the image looks wrong.

Peter 1745 wrote:

Guy,

Nice macro shot. I too am currently playing practising with my 60mm macro and off camera flash.

I hope you don't mind if pick your brains about your technique.

Did you use the flash TTL (with/without compensation) or did you go for manual control?

TTL no compensation, RC control, not so much interested in correct exposure this time as seeing the depth of field etc at various apertures, to me the f/11 one looked best as it left the rear screw just a little blurred - somehow looked better than having all of them in focus.

The shine off the stainless steel screws really pushed the white paper to grey, but looks OK to me. If I were to be serious about shooting shiny objects like this I should have used a dulling spray, and/or used a light tent (which I happen to have).

With flash, when being careful, I always go Manual camera mode to set ISO/shutter/aperture to what I want.

What do you do about white balance? I must admit I tend to leave it on auto and use Lightroom to adjust it if the image looks wrong.

Auto WB and fix it later. Most times the image looks better when WB adjusted to a bit on the warm side.

I need to get out and about with the 60mm to see how it works for real scenery in daylight. That plus chase insects.

Regards....... Guy

Guy Parsons wrote:

Peter 1745 wrote:

Guy,

Nice macro shot. I too am currently playing practising with my 60mm macro and off camera flash.

I hope you don't mind if pick your brains about your technique.

Did you use the flash TTL (with/without compensation) or did you go for manual control?

TTL no compensation, RC control, not so much interested in correct exposure this time as seeing the depth of field etc at various apertures, to me the f/11 one looked best as it left the rear screw just a little blurred - somehow looked better than having all of them in focus.

The shine off the stainless steel screws really pushed the white paper to grey, but looks OK to me. If I were to be serious about shooting shiny objects like this I should have used a dulling spray, and/or used a light tent (which I happen to have).

With flash, when being careful, I always go Manual camera mode to set ISO/shutter/aperture to what I want.

What do you do about white balance? I must admit I tend to leave it on auto and use Lightroom to adjust it if the image looks wrong.

Auto WB and fix it later. Most times the image looks better when WB adjusted to a bit on the warm side.

I need to get out and about with the 60mm to see how it works for real scenery in daylight. That plus chase insects.

Regards....... Guy

Thanks for your input

Nice work, Guy. I love my 60, but haven't had a chance to fully test it in macro mode.

How do you find the FL300? I have the FL36R and FL50R, but someone is selling an FL300 for $90 CDN. Should I get one for light duty?

Jeff Tokayer wrote:

Nice work, Guy. I love my 60, but haven't had a chance to fully test it in macro mode.

How do you find the FL300? I have the FL36R and FL50R, but someone is selling an FL300 for $90 CDN. Should I get one for light duty?

I find the FL-300R very useful. It will be my travel flash as it's small enough (in its little soft pouch) to carry anywhere in some odd corner. I have yet to check out all ISO speeds with the flash but it's very obvious that setting ISO to 800 suddenly makes it a "bigger" flash.

I'm using 2xAAA Sanyo Eneloop batteries in it and always have two spares and also a tiny USB charger to do 2xAA/AAA.

It has a wide slide so maybe even covers 9mm who knows, not tried as yet. Bends back for bounce and of course has RC slave control. No FP high speed sync though but I rarely get into situations where I need that, got FL-36R and FL-50 if needed. It replaces the Nikon SB-30 that was my take everywhere small flash, about the same size.

The FL-300R folds forward a little for close-up (not tried yet) and fold flat for storage, turns off when folded down. Still fits in my travel light snoot bag but usually is taken off when finished using it.

That snoot bag usually carries the FL300R, spare battery and card and cleaning cloth in front pouch, 9-18mm lens with hood in the base of the bag and the E-PL5 with Pana 14-45mm lens with Nikon HN-3 hood dropped in sideways like that so easy to grab. Lens cap always off.

I now have a biigger Kata bag to fit most of my M4/3 world in when a bit more serious. In that I have two bodies ready to grab plus 3 more lenses, one body mostly with 14-45mm or 9-18mm depending on circumstances, and the other with Pana 45-150mm. Huge kit but still light on the shoulder.

Regards....... Guy



Aleo Veuliah wrote:

Very good detail. I think that a bit darker background will improve this picture

As I said, I was not worried at all about artistic content or exposure for that matter, I was mainly trying all apertures on a bunch of objects at 1:1 that may need as much depth of field as some chunky insect. For some reason f/11 looked best for me even though the rear screw was a bit blurred. Of course looking at it 100% the depth of field is much shallower again than I see at full screen view.

Now I have a starting point when I do get outdoors and try some real things.

Today I picked up the rather clever slide-back hood for the lens, still expensive but surprisingly is cheaper than some of the less complex Oly hoods. Now need to find a 46mm centre squeeze lens cap to make life easier.

Regards....... Guy