Macro Photography in the English Garden
Frau A and I spent another morning in Munich's English Garden. After some "regular" photos, she spotted some caterpillars in a nearby tree and we changed to macro mode for them, a small smail, and a fly.
Note: I replaced my old Olympus E-PM2 with the newer Olympus E-M5, and have the Panasonic 45-200mm lens with the Canon 500D close-up lens for macro (also using a flash in the hot shoe).
The caterpillars here are maybe 3cm long, and the fly perhaps 1.5cm. The experts on dpreview.com forums are right -- focusing and DOF are very challenging. But we're having a lot of fun learning. My best 5 shots below.
Click on the shots to get a slightly larger version.
Caterpillar hanging from a thread (I like the bokeh and how it framed):
Fly on a leaf:
Caterpillar climbing:
Caterpillar and small snail on the same leaf!
Another fly - he didn't hang around long:
I will be trying the Canon 250D close-up lens on the Panasonic 45-200mm lens to get more magnification -- so we'll see if I can learn to improve focus, lighting, etc. in the future...
If anyone has tips for us on technique, etc., feel free to leave a comment of course.