Macro photos 31/1/12

Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro review

If you a trying to get into macro photography of photographing close up I would seriously recommend against purchasing this lens. I read many favorable reviews for the lens before purchasing it and most of them tell you how good it is. It is priced usually just under the $300 mark and I can see why. I have taken approximately 3000 photos with the same camera I take my other macro shots and would limit the photos that I would include on my blog to maybe 4.

Many of the images were taken with auto focus and were out of focus; these were taken over the full range not just the 200 – 300mm for macros. Taking photos with manual focus seemed no better, this is the first lens I have purchased that I seriously checked if it had some sort of protective film as seen on smart phone screens when you first purchase them.

Honestly my recommendation here would be to save up a little bit more and get a better lens, macro photography can be hard enough to do without the added problems of an inferior lens.  Opportunities with macro photography can come down to a split second with an insect which is about to fly away; therefore I would only use this lens if the insect was dead and I had time to set the camera on a tripod and take a couple of thousand shots.

What really concerns me however; if you read some of the reviews on it, is did they actually try the lens?

Macro Photography in the Rain

Obviously here I had some lighting issues, starting to understand how lighting effects photography.

Attitude Plus

This little spider just oozed attitude, if only it knew it was smaller than a centimetre, but the sucker can actually jump, thats when I realised size doesn't matter.

Grasshopper and friends

Just Bugs

These little suckers look alien, they are all about half the size of the ants, apart from the monster wasp which flew into the shot, ok I was scared and didn't take the time to focus on it, however it did make for a great shot, its features are visible although not in focus.

Sometimes I think the photos subjects want to eat me! Macro photography of insects is interesting especially when the are surounded by other bugs that seem to work as sentries.

Ant

Problem here is they are so small and are constantly moving, very hard to set focus. I will need to try these again. Might put some sugar and water on the plant and see if they will stop long enough to eat.