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a most difficult MACRO PP ever for me ….

I was planning to participate a local reserve jungle competition last weekend and decided to make my sensor clean before I proceed … I had my class on last monday and decided to send in Wed and that time my sensor have <30 sensor spots …. as blow

before cleaning

and some how I make a big mistake, I didn;t verify the cleaning done by the Canon service center after the session … and I went out outing next day morning from 8am –> 1am (fri) … managed to have some great find and shots for the long hours outing …

but after I uploaded to my workstation to view my result .. I found so many dusts in my pictures and it was started early morning of Thu (my 1st shots of the Thu ……. ) and I check back my last shot of Monday (<30 spots) … WOW mean the dusts develop while I sent for cleaning !!!!! (all my gears will be into dry box without leave open without lenses so far)……

So what Happen ?????

I went back Canon the next few hours .. and ask for why ? and I am disappointed with the service and they told me I can’t make complaint at the service center and need to write a email for that !!!!!!!!!!!!!

and I ask for re-clean for sure .. but then it took 4 round waiting to get my sensors clean and still more spots before I sent in Wed condition !!!!!!! make it short what happen

– before went Canon

– 1st round , they pass back the camera with ~100 spots with a line effect ….

after 10 minutes … waiting

– water spots …

– bubble effect ????????

I lost my patient and ask the technician out … and ask him .. are you make joke on me ? as the sensor never clean or even clean not you give me free bubble effect

then he went for another cleaning ………and this time ~30min again

the sensor is clean .. but then the watermark still there !!!!!!!!

I make some noise again .. and this time the technician told me I need to leave my camera in the service center because they need to check … I told them the water mark mostly their cleaning “effect” ask them re-clean the spots should go away instead open up my 5d …

ok …. finally another round of waiting , the water marks gone ….. and the technician come and told me it is because of my lens !!!!!!!!!! and I told him, before I send in here I shoot with the same len and it do not have any spots and I have the picture as prove !!!!! then he keep quiet and sound like it still cause by my len ……………..

I immediate draft a complaint letter to Canon Malaysia .. but they only response me on today and claim they will investigate …………

I think it is good to share this experience to all so to make them give us more professional service in future …

end up ……………….. I spend hour to clone one of the picture dusts slowly and apply it to all other pictures I shoot ………(man … ~200-300 spots… it is real kill) … and even after the clone every pictures still need to verify further ……………………….

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How I Shoot MACRO (update Jan 2011)

I am migrating most of my sharing from previous blogspot to here …. at the same time also update some of my update …… for how I shoot MACRO, I didn;t change much except lighting, diffuser (which I do keep improving it …..) and time spent on MACRO had been reduce @2010. Hope I can spend more time to MACRO 2011 ….

1. Manual Focus

– this not been change I use manual focus for my MACRO and Landscape shooting … may be that’s why my 5dm2 still serve me well …….
– due to the swallow DOF so it is not easy to get the AF work correctly what you going to focus especially at >1 life times
– so I will fix my magnification, then move myself backward & frontward to get object focus instead of turning the focus ring (do not do this for start) …

2. setting

2.1 ISO

– lowest possible but depend on whether how efficient is yours’ diffuser… if you make one lost too much light and you may need to push higher ISO but this have to be control together with aperture … normally I will suggest reduce one stop from ISO then follow by aperture instead only pushing ISO straight

– this may also depend you want to control yours’ BG or not … more old discussion – How I control Background …. to bring more BG color, we may need to push higher ISO ….

2.2 F number or aperture

– refer to how is Aperture affect MACRO Here

– so minimum F number I use will be
<1:1    F5.6 – F16      —> F8
1:1      F11 – F16      —> F16
2:1      F11 – F14      —> F14
3:1      F8 – F13       —> F11
4:1      F5.6 – F8      —> F8
5:1      F5.6 – F8      —> F7.1 –

I provide the recommended aperture range and F number I use 😀
– you may ask
i. why I reduce the aperture/F number and this eventually reduce my DOF
– yes, it will reduce DOF but i have to maintain the sharpness which impact by Diffraction (higher F number use will make picture softer)

ii. why my pictures DOF look thicker and ~same with 1-4 :1 even smaller aperture/F number use ….
– I focus stack my pictures so DOF in my picture is result of multiple shooting with stacking. what is focus stack ? please refer here

2.3 Shutter speed

– for full flash MACRO, I try to use flash MAX sync speed normally it should be ~1/200-1/250
– for Natural Light/Fill Flash MACRO, use aperture mode and let the body decide for you .. so mostly it may require tripod for slower shutter speed to avoid shake
– for start I will prefer to have minimum 1/125 or above
– what I use –> 1/200… 5d MAX sync speed

3. Flash, Yes or No???
– if we use flash, it will depend full flash or fill flash
– full flash will give flash compesate all the light requirement but fill flash is like Natural/available light macro where most of the light should be ambient light but flash just to try to light up, reduce shadow …..
– this is very subjective question where it depend environment, bug, light condition .. etc ….
– normally while shoot Natural Light (NL) without flash, I will use Aperture priority mode…. F8 then will adjust ISO to get correct aperture

– what I use –> 90% full flash
– while use flash, the flash have to be diffuse. why .. may be I should share more on this .. but simple share 2 pictures below to share different diffuser result …

different with different diffuser

– I will share another topics regard diffuser very soon …

4. diffuse or not ?

– this is most important portion (for me)
– if you din’t get diffuse correct, object details will be loss even you got it focus

my new lighting for both

long focal length full flash macro lighting – SIGMA150mm

shorter focal length full flash macro lighting – Canon MP-E65

*** sorry for most the link still old one.. and I am trying my best to update those link  and migrate over here

5. flash exposure compensation (FEC)
– it is important to control the light require…
– most of the time we need find a standard value for our setting .. for both of my setup I use -1 FEC as dafault
– what/when I change ? I normally plus FEC while I have brighter BG or I need more BG color to be light up…. then if the BG have black or dark BG then I will reduce the FEC ….

ok …. let’s go out and shoot now ….

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New Collection – Twig-Like Feather-Legged Spider, Miagrammopes sp.

don;t think this is rare but 1st time seeing it, found this after few hours waiting for the Owl Frog (going to share this later) … just before  I step up to my car found this spider on my tripod , can;t recognized it as spider for start but after a while decided to change the len to have few shots of the weird spider …

update

more spider pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liewwk/sets/72157605367434629/with/5362789837/

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News – Publish @WWF-MALAYSIA 2011 Calendar …

For 2010, I had few work published at few commercial photography magazines either from local or oversea… but this is my 1st time have my work publish in Calendar and it is for WWF-Malaysia. As part of the nature lover, I feel sad that feel of my usual MACRO ground had been destroy for development ……

e.g.

http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2010/06/news-another-sad-news.html

Wild life need our help to protect them, WWF-Malaysia is one of the most active society that running conservation projects such as saving endangered species, protect forests, river, sea and etc …..

WWF-Malaysia 2011 Calendar

The Frog

... supper time ...

this picture show while my last trip @BELUM Rainforest

http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-oct-23-25-belum-rainforest-outing.html

and the day before I went this outing, I got new that my work had published into an education book @Netherlands (previous post @

http://liewwk-macro.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-macro-pictures-are-published.html )