Sigma 180mm F3.5 Macro

A couple of blogs ago i mentioned how the Tamron SP90 macro had trownsed the competition and taken top honours in a brit camera monthly and said that to get the best results you don't always have to by a Canon lens for your Canon or a Nikon lens for your Nikon body, I bought a Sigma 180mm F3.5 Macro lens when i swapped systems, I did look at others including Nikon's own 200mm F4 and Sigmas other Macro the 150mm F2.8, Nikon have recently upgraded their 105mm macro and it now has VR (vibration reduction) and it gets rave reviews but i wanted the extra length that a 150-200 would offer and make it easier for me as i wouldn't have to get soo close to the subjects which in nature macro photography are spooky enough, Nikon's 200mm F4 macro still has its champions but its a little long in the tooth so that just gave the Sigmas, My brother has the 150mm2.8 and i know a few others how have it and love it, Its newer to the market than the 180mm F3.5 but i know a few pros who get fantastic results from the 180mm so i went with it, Now i don't do much Macro work although i can see its easy to get the 'bug', So last week i decided as there are alot of bugs and butterflies around at the moment to dust off the macro and give it a go, I normally use a tripod when shooting macro as you tend to use a small aperture and shutter speeds tend to be slower than normal, but over here the biggest problem is the heat, its been in the high 80-mid 90's for a couple of months and even in the dead of night it doesn't drop below 70 degrees, Now when i shot in Europe you could get up early an catch the bugs before they warmed up and sometimes with dew on them-here its a different matter as they are already warm and buzzing around at first light so i had to shoot handheld as they flitted from one bush to the next, this meant that i had to up the ISO and not use as small an aperture as i would have really liked, but as this was more of a test of the lens than anything i wasn't so bothered, I used the Sigma 180 F3.5 macro lens on both cropped sensor (D300) and Full frame (D3) and it performed well on both, I was shooting around F11 so vignetting wasn't an issue, AF isn't as fast as it would be with a normal prime, This is also the case on Canons 180mm F3.5 Macro but fast enough, I used the focus limiter to help here but more of that in my next blog, I also tried using manual focus as i would normally do and move back and forwards until the subject is in focus but most of the time as things were moving around too much i had to rely on the AF and focus point placement to get the shot, The lens feels nice in use and in the hand, The controls are nice and smooth and i like the dark grey matted finish, Nikon's 200F4 macro is in the shops here for over $1600 and Canons around $1350 but i paid only $699 for the Sigma so a saving of 50% or more and results that are equal to the factories own lenses, for somebody like myself who only gets to do macro a few times a year that well worth the savings as it is for somebody who does a lot of macro work, Its a robust lens and feels like it will last a fair few years, Here are a couple of examples from last week

with a small crop for presentation


and with a 100% crop


One where i wish i had some extensions tubes on


and 100% crop of the above


A standard Butterfly image


and a non standard Bee image


Nikon owners note:when using the Sigma 180 F3.5 macro make sure that the aperture wheel is set to F32 otherwise you will get a 'FEE' error message


Dave

Local Patch - Quick garden update

Once again dodgy weather and decorating needs restrict getting out and about to the garden, but what a day it has been. First decent warm and sunny one for a while really did bring out the butterfly again, plus a few others.

I took a tea break from plastering sat in the garden and was amazed at the numbers I saw. I counted up to about 50 either in the air or sat down all over the place. In fact some individual rocks were getting overcrowded with Painted Ladies So we have had Large and Small Whites, plus Green Veined in abundance, tens and tens of Ladies, many Peacocks, plus a Common Blue, Speckled Wood and a Comma. Each of the last three avoided the gaze of my lens.

There were also numerous ladybirds, plus a number of hoverflies different varieties followed by a very close encounter with a female Southern Hawker. I took the camera up to the pond to get an image but was blessed with her just flying around me at very close quarters as she was 'hawking' for food. It was a privilege to watch at such close quarters.

As you will see from the images below, the Painted Ladies just do not seem to care where they land. One seemed very happy in the bird feeder tray.

Small White on Buddleia

Peacock

Painted Lady on the rocks (good name for a cocktail)

Painted Lady and a Comma, showing the white trademark 'comma' on the undersides

Painted Lady on bird seed tray

Hoverflies - erm? well sort of busy

Well it looks like the Canon 180 f3.5L macro lens has been used more than any other lens this year so far. I synchronised my image library in Adobe Lightroom v2 on Saturday and checking the metadata attributes, the 180 macro now has over 1500 shots taken with it, followed closely behind by the 500 with the 1.4 converter attached.

Right - off for some more guitar practice now. Some of you from CFF forum will know what I am on about.

Martin

Long Lens close ups

Its that time of year when everybody reaches for their macro lenses for butterflies/dragonflies and wildflowers, But unless you want real close ups like a dragonflies head i prefer to shoot with a long lens and extension tubes-why? well firstly with insects it gives more working room so they are less easily spooked and secondly you can throw the background nicely out of focus and get great Bokeh, The 300F4 lenses work really well here as they have a minimum focusing distance of around 1.4m and with an extension tube or 2 they work great for close ups, I have used my old 500F4 many times and with 2 or 3 tubes on give great results



Dave

Trip Report - Thrislington NNR

As I mentioned here last weekend, I went to an interesting place with many Early Purple Orchids on the run back from Scotland.

The site is the Thrislington NNR in County Durham, a site rich in magnesium limestone so good for wildflowers.

Just across the road from the site is a Lafarge quarrying site, which can be seen in the background of the first image.

This image was taken with the Canon 24-70f2.8L lens to give an environmental shot of the subject and habitat.

This second image was taken using the Canon 180f3.5L macro lens, which really is a beautiful bit of kit which I am very thankful for the loan of at the moment. It has been seeing some good use and hope to get more fine images this summer.

Both were taken with the gear on a tripod set to low level, and manual focussed and exposed.

Martin

Techniques - Macro and AI Servo

OK - so not really true macro per se, but close up.

Normally close up work for me is manual focus and manual focus only using Live View, DOF preview and 5x magnification.

But just occasionally we are set little challenges in how we capture an image.

It was under such circumstances yesterday that I found I needed to totally change my approach.

I had been watching many different butterflies in my wildlife garden and have generally always struggled to get anything half decent. They usually spot me coming from too far away and with the 100mm macro - my usual choice you need to get close.

So what to do?

Well I put together a combination of my 1Dmk3, 70-200f2.8 IS L, at 200mm Fl, with the 1.4 EFTC, plus a 20mm extension tube. This enabled me to get the minimum focus closer than the 1.4m minimum distance. I guess I could have used the 300f4 IS L as this also has a min. focus distance of 1.5m.

But why AI Servo?

My subject, a beautiful Orange Tip butterfly, showing its undersides was resting on some Shepherds Purse, of which there is plenty in the garden at the moment. However, there was quite a breeze and the thing was flapping about in the breeze. I tried to use the standard One Shot focus mode and I tried to manually focus but all the results were poor.

So I set the AI servo response to fastest in the Custom Function settings and set the AF to AI Servo mode. This way as the subject was moving back and forth the AF would continue to track.

However, it was important that I froze that movement as well so I needed to ensure a decent shutter speed, so I opted to ramp up to ISO800. This is a setting that the 1Dmk3 handles exceptionally well, provided you expose correctly.


The final tip for would be butterfly photographers is to manage your depth of field. When they are resting like this, go for the side on shot, get perpendicular to the subject as the DOF you need is at its lowest. You will be surprised how much aperture you need - this was taken at f10

Martin

From the archives - Fungi

I thought I would share some 'out of season images with you all this week. The Autumn is one of the great seasons for wildlife photographers with fabulous golden light of late afternoons and early mornings, lots of bird migration and for those of us who like some close up work then there are the opportunities for fungi as well.

The 2006 'season' was fantastic with a bumper year that seemed to last for ages, whereas the last two years have been pretty challenging. I am fortunate in that I have a great wood near me with varied coniferous and deciduous habitat.

Fungi compared to other wildlife subjects are actually really easy if you think about it, as they are not going to get up and run away from you, so you as the photographer have the opportunity to control everything. The most difficult part is finding your subjects, but once you have then the results are all down to you.

I took this just over two years ago with my old Canon 1Dmk2N and 100mmf2.8 macro. I have shown a phone pic I took of the set up, using a couple of reflectors and a diffuser to hold back the strong sunlight. Tripod mounted, of course with remote release and manually focussed as all of my fungi shots are.

The latest 'Live View' facilities on the current breed of Canon and Nikon cameras has transformed macro photography for me now. I use the Live View, in conjunction with the histogram information to verify the exposure using M Mode, and then zoom in with the 5X magnification, depress the DOF preview button and then scroll around the main part of the subject to ensure that the subject has exactly the right components sharp. This technique really has taken out a lot of inaccuracies associated with looking through the viewfinder, particularly if the camera is at ground level.

I have only found one drawback using this technique and that is battery life. Using the screen does drain the battery much faster than conventional shooting as you would expect. That said, current battery life on the 1D mk3 is excellent and I am sure it is also on the latest Nikon offerings too.

When setting out to find fungi, early damp mornings have proven to be the most successful although you will have to watch out for the dog walkers, and make sure that you don't scare them if you suddenly get up as they are approaching you, unless you have a warped sense of humour. Another consideration is to make sure that you have permission to access the land you are photographing on.

There are some great resources on the 'net, one of the better ones is Roger's Mushrooms. I have had species confirmed by Roger Phillips - a really helpful guy. I can also thoroughly recommend his great book - see ad below.

This family group of Mycena was takenwith my old Canon 5D and 100mmf2.8 macro.

And finally, this was taken in the October last year, using the 1Dmk3, using the Live View technique. The species is Armilleria Ostoyae or Brown Honey Fungus, and was the species that Roger helped to confirm.

So something a little different from our blogs to date. Many thanks to those who have commented and continue to support the blog. If there are any subjects you want to see covered, then give us a shout on here

Martin