Renting First Macro

[kilroy217]

Hi all,

I'm going to be renting the Nikon 105 f/2.8 VR just to check it out. I'll have it for a week, but in particular will be at the local Aquarium on Saturday. Any tips on things I should be looking for/feeling out/playing with specifically?

Thanks for the help!

[dendronepthya]

Tripods are very helpful for macro photography. If you have one that isn't too obtrusive, I'd think about bringing it along and seeing the difference with and without a tripod. I don't know of many people who shoot a lot of macro without one.

[kilroy217]

Yeah, I was planning on using my tripod at home throughout the week, but wasn't considering it for the Aquarium. It couldn't hurt to leave it in the trunk of the car, though, and see how crowded it is in there first.

[chazde3]

+1 on the tripod. I'm not sure how well some of the macros would come out without a tripod. Any little movement blurs a macros detail.

[kilroy217]

Considering it's a crowded public space, would a monopod work, or will the images still be too blurry?

[dendronepthya]

What I've noticed with my macro photography is you need to use a fairly small aperture to get a greater depth of field. If you are up close on something and shooting at f/2.8 you are going to get a very blurry picture because the focal plane is paper thin. I normally use f/11 or f/16 to do my macro shots. My ISO I keep at 100, so it makes for very long exposure times. Sometimes the shutter speed is over 5 seconds. I cannot hand hold a 100mm lens for 5 seconds (with or without image stabilization) and get good results. For this reason I question how effective a monopod would be. Maybe if you fiddled around with settings to get a shutter speed of 1/50 with VR you could get a decent shot, but it's not a sure thing by any stretch.

[BlueCorn]

Most aquariums don't allow tripods because they're often dimly lit and the tripod poses a trip hazard.

Most will allow monopods but you should check before you arrive. You'll likely need to compensate some by increasing ISO and opening up your aperture a bit.

[Tremont]

I have yet to find an aquarium where I was able to pull off good macro shots...and I have tried many. The glass is usually extremely scratched on the outside. I even once had a day at the Point Defiance Aquarium in Tacoma where I didn't see a single other person, not even an employee, in the seahorse exhibit for almost an hour...not one of my shots was salvageable due to the scratches.

-Tre

[kilroy217]

I found out that tripods and/or monopods are, in fact, welcome at my local Aquarium. I'm going to give it a shot... see what happens.