Macro daffodil

[Steve Foss]

I thought I'd get up close and personal to this white/yellow daffodil after seeing it getting pounded by the gale going on right now. No rain, just wind.

And Tom's macro work inspired me.

This was shot with the only true macro I have, and the Canon 20D. The lens is the Tamron 70-300 macro, which operates as a true macro in the 180-300mm range. Only costs about 150 bucks. While it takes decent images, it has its problems.

The below image, while I like the color subtlety and composition, is not as sharp as the work of top-ranked macro glass, and there are portions of the center of the flower where the color is most intense that are a bit blown out. The slight blowout, where the green meets and becomes the yellow toward the center, is visible on my monitor, and would be plain as day on a print. With any of the top-grade Canon or Nikon macros, that would not have been the case. I shot some with the 100-400L image stabilizer, but could not get close enough to duplicate this magnification, and I could have gotten a good bit closer than I did with the Tamron. It's natural lighting coming in through the windows on a bright cloudy day, with an incandescent bulb adding warmer light from the left side. I photographed it against a black background, which showed through to some degree on the rear petals and made it easier to properly expose the petals, which would have appeared much whiter with a pale background.

Focus distance was about three feet, which is a lot of working distance for that level of magnification, and the longer the working distance, the less we disturb things when butterflies and bees are on the flower.

Canon 20D, Tamron 70-300 macro zoom at 183mm, iso100, .60 sec, f20, Manfrotto 724B tripod.

[Fishbitten]

Super nice !! now i have to go out in the woods and find

a bug and a flower and a frog.

[Dbl]

I have basically that same lens(Quantaray 70-300 macro made by Tamron as far as I know). Have not done much macro work with it, because, well Steve explained why. Still, it is the photographer that makes the shot, nice image Steve.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks Dbl and fishbitten. I actually like a lot about the image. It's nice for online and newspaper resolution. It only really falls apart at the higher 300 dpi standard needed for prints and glossy mag.

Dbl, if I remember correctly, Tamron does or did make the Quantaray brand. Quantaray is the in-house brand sold by Black's Photography chain stores. The sales staff there tend to push Quantaray over any other consumer level lens because the store makes the most profit on them. It sounds like you already know this, but Tamron making Quantary is like Shakespeare making tackle for K-Mart. Some Tamron lenses are excellent, professional grade glass.

When I bought my Canon EOS Elan IIe film camera a bunch of years back, a Quantary zoom came with it in a package deal.

I rummage saled it two weeks later.

Tamron does make a very nice fixed focal length macro, however. It's a 90mm f2.8 1:1 macro. At about $425, it's not much less expensive than Canon's sweet 100mm macro (you're a Canon shooter, if I remember). Both lenses are sharp and offer excellent saturation/contrast/subtlety.

Meanwhile, however, if I take more time in pp, and partly because I shoot RAW, there are things I can do to overcome the slight deficiencies of the Tamrom macro zoom I have. It's a lot better to get out there and shoot whatever macro lens you've got than leave it in the bag because someone says it's not a "pro" level lens.

Macro is so much fun that it can become addicting. Plus, flowers don't run away if your shutter is too loud.

[Dbl]

I have looked at the Tamron 90/2.8. It is on my wish list of glass to buy. You did not remember correctly, I am the lone Pentax guy Pentax actually has a number of really nice lenses in the macro category, I just don't have that kind of cash. They are worse price wise than some of the L series Canon.

My Quantaray was a package deal also, still carry it around just because it is light and it has its uses as long as you work around its deficiencies. You are right on, if shooting in RAW you can disguise some of its inadequacies.

[Steve Foss]

Oh, that's right. The lone Pentax guy! Guess that's my Canon-ness showing again. Sorry.

[Dbl]

Now I am laughing. Boy you can tell its a rainy day. I haven't seen this many posts in this short of time in ages!