Criticism is good when it's constructive, I won't beat you :P What part do you think is out of focus!? The object (butterfly) or surroundings (grass/flower) ?? The idea behind these shots IS to blur out the items I simply do not want in focus. For example, the black and white butterfly. The focus on that picture is on it's head and front half of his body. I set the camera to focus on that part of the object. I then use a short depth of field in order to create a blurry background and also blur anything in the foreground so the focus remains on the object. Like I said, neither one of these images have been edited beyond a quick resize so keep that in mind.
The red butterfly is a bit washed out because I have not leveled the colors or adjusted the light on it yet. The effect I was looking for on that picture was a very clear foreground, flower and head of the butterfly. This was done using a very short depth of field, hence why the back of the butterfly is blurred, this is intentional. You may also notice one of those feeler things on is head is almost out of focus and as you get closer to it's head it's getting in to focus ... this is not a mishap bro, it was done this way intentionally.
The resizing of the pictures unfortunately removes A LOT of details out of these shots. Keep in mind they went from roughly 16 MB in size down to a measly 64K or so ...

Another example for you ... The bee is the object here and though it was a sunny day when I took this picture, the background came out black. This is due to a very short depth of field setting on the camera which allows me to get just enough light in to where it captures the object but nothing beyond it. Hence, it turns black. As you can see in this picture it very quickly starts to blur when you look "deeper" in to the picture, again, this is by design. I would say my bee picture here is a damn fine example of a good macro shot (I've had the original size published, thank you very much!).

You can of course greatly increase the depth of field by using different apperature settings on the camera but why do you want the grass or surroundings in focus!? Macro is all about picking out the details out of the very very small. I have pictures somewhere of fire ants at about 0.5 inches in length and I've used such a short depth of field that literally the back half is either blurred out or almost black. In the event of the two pics I posted here I wanted to focus on the very heads and front of the objects and get the background out of the way ... so while they are blurry, they should be :-)

Does this answer it?


[IMG]local://upfiles/1157/BCB964BBE14044309E67EF09F665C850.jpg[/IMG]

 

or this one.... the tiny thing on the right is the body...

http://www.foosoftware.com/photo/tv5200cat.jpg

 

Another example of it ... I took this one YEARS ago ... It has been resized and edited but the background is "original" and blurry, this again intentionally.



[IMG]local://upfiles/1157/782A19621256453D80ED5CF50AB01489.jpg[/IMG]

 

I spent a similar amount on my speedlite I got ... the ring light for the 50mm is nice as hell but you won't end up using it a whole lot I don't think. How do you like your 20D so far?? I've looked at them myself but opted for the 5D instead .. or I should say I settled for the 5D since there ain't no way upon gawds green earth I'm shelling out 7K for a 1DS Mark II even though I'd kill to have that camera lol! Maybe if I can get a good deal on one around $3,500 *yeah right* bucks I might .... but even that would be pushing it for what I'm willing to spend .... the 12.8MP I have stung enough ..

I don't even want to discuss depreciation on this stuff, it willmake me cry. I have a cam corder and bunch of accessories there too so I feel ya .. it adds up quickly but ... if you enjoy the stuff, why not ..

 

On the bee picture, the left wing is VERY sharp but the rest of the body isn't. I know the backgrounds are supposed to be blurred, but I guess I just am expecting it to be sharper and more detailed like that wing is. IS it just the scaling that is doing that?

 

I just noticed everything that is even with the wing is sharp but in front and back of it isn't, so I kinda get what you mean, but I'm just used to seeing bug and animal pictures where the entire body is sharp as nails and the rest of the picture isn't. If you meant to just focus on that wing or that part of the body where the hair is then I understand. I just am dense sorry

 

No, it's not scaling .. it will depend on my focus point .. when I use a very short depth of field and then set my focus point on for example the head, whatever is further away than the head will then progressively become more blurred. In the event of my two butterfly pics they are both center focused (I have 9 or 11 focus points to play with, I can't remember which one it is lol) right smack on their heads which yes, will blur the body somewhat the further back you get. I don't have the originals here at work but I'm going to compare them to the edited/resized ones when I get home and see if I can tell any differences.

The focus point on the bee is on the left side of the critter. The picture has actually been rotated 90 degrees clockwise and then cropped to make it look like it was taken dead on. That is why the left wing is more in focus than the right. You also have that nasty hotspot on the right wing which contributes to killing off the detail.

The snake picture was also centerfocused but inside its mouth, not on the outside of the head. The image was then cropped to give it the appearance of the snake coming out of the picture. If I recall correctly this was a bigger picture I cropped to get just that head shot ...

 

I'm looking into your suggestions. I will definately get the IS no matter what I end up getting!! I've copied and pasted all this info in Stickies.

Thanks for the info!!

 

Thank you sweetness! It looks like it coulda been, I didn't notice until you mentioned it.

 

As a matter of fact Jean, I do have some french blood.

Thank you, hope you're feeling better and are back on those horses! [sm=smiley31.gif]