It was getting to the end of fall and I went on a walk to gather some leaves on the ground. I tried to pick one of every kind I could find. Once I got home, I placed them in books to flatten them. This was my first mistake. I invited my buddy over that evening to do macro shots of the leaves but the leaves didn't stay in the book long enough to be really flat. With macro photography, the depth of field is rather thin so any lumps could be out of focus.
So that evening I shot everything with my Rokinon 50mm 1.2 + macro tubes and this was the first time I noticed this lens is crappy for macro photography. It's rather soft and also the corners were terrible. Now, it's normal to have corner softness as this isn't a dedicated macro lens but it was unusably soft.
Rather disappointed, I tried with my Fujinon 27mm and the corners were much better but still soft. Also, it was in the evening and we tried using flash but it didn't give me the result I was hoping for.
The next day I realized I could try with focus stacking. I'll focus in the middle and in one of the corners. This improves the corner sharpness, still a bit soft though, but this is the best I could do. Also with natural light, it looked more natural. The leaf stayed in the book overnight as well which helped.
|
|
|
| 27mm + Macro tubes 8sec F/11 ISO 160 |
I'm really happy how this came out. I love the composition and color. This shot really made me contemplate getting a dedicated macro lens. Rokinon makes a lovely one but it's hard to justify $700+ for only sometimes when I can use my macro tubes and still get good results.
Comments
Post a Comment