Tripod for outdoor macro Photography

[Geoff F]

The 105 is fine for flowers or other objects where you can get up close, or larger specimens but for insects I would recommend the 150 which gives that little bit more working distance for those easily spooked species. A lot of macro photographers on this site use the Sigma 150 but there are other makes available.

I prefer the 180 and often find that a bit short, especially when working in brambles, gorse or larger bushes where it is physically impossible to get any closer.

[Geoff F]

Hello again, James. This may just add to the confusion, but here goes anyway.

Went for a walk today, a general walk so I took a general purpose lens, my Canon 70-300. Also, just in case anything interesting occured, I added a 25mm extension tube and the lightweight Velbon CX mini tripod.

Took a few photos, 3 of which are attached. The tripod was, in this case, definitely too short for the undergrowth and I had to use it at maximum length all the time. Even then, with a longish lens I was mostly looking eye to eye with the subjects which is fine for a few shots but I often tend to prefer angling downwards to improve depth of field while reaching over the intervening flora.

But with these sample photos I managed a better angle although I was only able to do this by getting in fairly close and setting the zoom to around 150-200 mm.

Anyhow, I hope this will give you some indication of what can be achieved with a tube. I would expect to get slightly sharper images with a macro lens but after a touch of Unsharp Mask and a smidgen of Curves I think these samples are acceptable.



ps. they have been cropped a bit. F11 ISO 400-800.

Geoff.

[NickCantle]

Originally Posted by ron1863

Yep, £85.00 for the 190XPROB (without a head), cheap as chips

I didn't say 'cheap', I said 'cheaper' Plus for a decent tripod, I'd say that's very cheap

[wellies101]

Geoff, those photos are great and along the lines of how close I'd like my shots to be, maybe a touch closer. But hey, beggers can't be choosers. I may, in the long run, have to get 2 lenses, one for invertebrates and one for flowers, then once I have good shots of "an" invertebrate (say peacock butterfly) on the invert lens, I could try and get it on the closer focussing "flower" lens.

[Geoff F]

In most cases, providing you can move back a little, something like a 150 mm macro lens will suffice for all purposes.