HarveyG Photography

Despite 4 hours of standing outdoors in the freezing Highveld winter near Jo’burg, it was fun! What photography isn’t? Thanks to my friend Wayne for letting me shoot on his plot and keeping the coffee, red wine and conversation flowing! I eventually lost the feeling in my feet, it was so cold. The joys of outdoor photography

Lunar Eclipse 2011 06 15 © HarveyG Photography

How was it shot? See my technique here:

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Was commissioned by Simon Says Communications to shoot casual, candid and fun shots for Merck, who have sponsored this event for 19 years! Up at 3am to arrive at 4am. The first hour was dark, shooting in artificial light, no flash, so the f/4 and f/2.8′s are perfect for that at around ISO 400-1600. If you don’t have the budget for an f/2.8 zoom, a 50mm f/1.8 would be ideal for the type of close range work in poor light. The rest of the day I shot with my 12-24mm and the 70-200mm on two bodies. Man was it cold and wet and grey and overcast. The lens hoods were catching the moisture in the air and the droplets were starting to freeze. My gear held out despite the bighting cold and slight drizzle. Shot with Nikon bodies, SB-800 speeedlights, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 ATX Pro DX, Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 AF-D, Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 HSM. No VR and mostly hand held or on a Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod

Thank you to Kerry and her team for a fun shoot. Hope those runners didn’t cramp up too much thanks to Slow-Mag®!

Gear I use: Bodies: Nikon D-SLR’s / Lenses: Nikon, Sigma, Tokina, Vivitar /
Filters: Hoya UV & Polarizing / Flash: Nikon Speed-lights / Bag: Lowe Pro /
Tripods & Heads: Manfrotto / Grips and Batteries: Phottix
Editing Plug-in: Topaz Labs for Noise Reduction, HDR.

Silkmoth, Bombyx mori

OK. So you have a yearning to try Macro work? Ladybugs, Mantids, Flowers or anything else that springs to mind. But that $1000.00 105mm f/2,8 VRII Macro Lens is just a little beyond the budget? You should have gotten an 18-55mm Kit lens with your DSLR or you have a nice 28-70mm f/2.8? Your not sure if spending so much money will be worth it? There are a number of solutions. You can buy an adaptor ring or reversal ring, which mounts into your DSLR body and the other end is threaded so that you can reverse your lens and screw it into the adaptor. This effectively turns your lens into a macro lens. Sure there will be no metering. Focus and exposure is manual and you will have to determine the correct exposure, by trial and error. Set mirror lock-up and use the best tripod you can afford. A small shutter release is also a definite must. All of which prevent camera shake and blur. So choose an object that is stationary, like a coin, or flower or rings. This reverse ring will cost you all of maybe $25-00. Don’t like it? Too much effort? Then macro is probably not for you. You see, even with a dedicated Macro lens you will eventually only manually focus. Focus and composition is so critical on macro’s that you can’t let the camera’s AF do it for you. Whilst the exposure is auto on such a lens, you might sill need to add flash or fill light to your subject. Trust me, its better to set that up manually too, you will want to control the light direction and intensity more often than not, meaning off camera flash. iTTL or eTTL is pretty pointless then, unless you insist on running it using an ext cable. There are many online macro tutorials, all I’d like to say here is go cheap first. Go manual. You have more control and if you find that going from stationary objects to moving beetles or bees becomes near impossible, yet you are still keen to try, then go for a few extension rings. You get manual and automatic version of this. If you can afford it, take the auto’s. It’s one less thing to worry about when you start chasing live subjects. Sure you can throw the bug into the deep freeze for 5 minutes and haul him out in a state of narcosis, but you don’t have a fridge in the veld 100 miles from home. So you need to practice before you hit the road.

This image was shot with a set of Phottix AF Macro Tubes coupled to a Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG and a YongNuo YN-460 II Speedlight that was fired with a set of Phottix Tetra Triggers and an IR Remote Control. Outlay for flash, AF ext tubes, batteries, triggers and IR RC (excluding camera and lens) about $390-00 vs a dedicated 105mm f/2.8 VR macro lens of about $1000-00, no flash or batteries…

A word of caution, the smaller macro lenses around 40/50/60mm tend to minimum focus (1:1) TOO close to the subject. The front element is literally a few cm’s or even a few mm’s away from the subject, and if it’s a live subject, it’s scared off long before you can focus. This is true for extension tubes combined with normal short tele lenses. But at least you haven’t made a $700-00 to $1000-00 mistake.  This then is the attraction of the huge 180mm Macro’s. 40cm / 18″ closest focusing distance but thats one huge chunk of glass, and thus heavy to lug around. In everything there are compromise, especially photography.

If you are going to buy a real macro lens, also don’t bother with those 70-300mm “macro” lenses. You normally don’t get 1:1 lifesize ratios, they tend to be 1:2 or often 1:3. Maybe you have one of these lenses. Go right ahead, switch it to macro and try it. Not what you expected right? If macro is for you, get at least a 100mm (Canon) or 105mm (Nikon) mount from Canon, Nikon or Sigma. I use a 180mm f/3.5. It’s a chunk of glass weighing in at 2.1 lbs (965g) and no OS/IS/VR. (ETA: Sigma have released an OS f/2.8 version in Jan 2012.) Tripod only unless you have arms like Arnold…which I don’t! But it’s closest focus distance is 18″ from the subject. Get something in the 100-150mm range. Thank me later

Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 EX DG

Today I became the proud owner of a Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG for Nikon AF-D.
Sigma MSRP $1100 US
Initial Street Price $499 US
Final Street Price $349 US (December 2009)
The full frame (Sigma’s DG Technology) lens that is effectively a 42-105mm f/2.8 on the D90′s DX sensor. Ideal for daily and portrait work. Sigma have for years made outstanding lenses. This one is no exception. This lens has sadly been discontinued and replaced by the slightly wider 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG with MACRO. (MSRP $1400 US! Initial Street Price $569 US December 2009)
Here are it’s technical specs from Sigma’s own website recorded for posterity before they take it down: A review will be posted here in due course. (continue reading…)