www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hi all. I have a Canon S51S, with which I'm generally pretty satisfied. Butterfly photography is one of it's main uses in summer, but I was getting a bit frustrated by the need to get physically VERY close to the subject to get the best shots. So, having read about, and seen some people's results with, I invested in a conversion lens adaptor and a DHG Macro Acromat 3dptr, hoping to be able to take pics from a bit further away. But, it must be THE most disapointing piece of kit I've ever bought! The camera's autofocus refuses to function when it's fitted, so I have to resort to the manual focus option, but the deapth of field is so minute it's practically useless anyway, the tiniest amount of movement of the camera or the subject takes the subject totally out of focus. I've yet to get a properly focused image with it. It seems only to be of use if it were on a tripod and shooting a totally flat subject. Has any one else found this, or am I missing something?

Hi, well there’s a thing, depth of field (DoF) is a tricky subject and it varies with the type of camera and the type of lens – not to mention the ‘f’ stop! In brief:-

To put things into perspective (no pun intended) if you have a compact digital, your sensor size might fit onto a full frame 35mm slide up to 80 times – yes I really do mean 80! Now the average compact sensor would fit on around 45 times – not big and they still may have 10MP. Now small does not mean bad, they have one little advantage over the larger sensor – they have a greater DoF for a given ‘f’ stop BUT when you start adding close up attachments (macro) you begin to radically bring the DoF down.

The DoF can be as little as a few mm, so beware the macro attachment unless you want to photograph flat and still objects! Now you can of course, help with the DoF by closing down the Aperture or ‘f’ stop (bigger numbers) and compensating with a slower speed and or increasing the ISO (the old film speed or sensitivity). With a reasonable compact, you may get a close-up DoF of around 2 - 4cm at f11.

Now I am a tad new to the sport of butterfly photography but the same photographic principles apply. I find that I like to use an ISO setting of 200 (less chance of grain) - I normally need a reasonable speed, say 250th at least and if I were to using my Nikon D300 with a 60mm macro lens, I’d have no chance of getting the DoF in anything less than an arc welding light! (Lots of light to bring down the ‘f’ stop - or running up the ISO to 6400! or both!)

The compromise – I use a 70 – 300mm lens normally at 300mm, even so I still need to control the ‘f’ stop to at least f8 for the best results.

I would love to hear how the other chaps out there are resolving the issue – that chap Jerry hawker has some stunning shots with spot on DoF – how are you doing that Jerry?

Rod

I'd say that focus the camera manually at infinity and use the zoom for cropping. Focusing is done by moving the camera. In some cameras you might get an "in focus" indication, but those are rare. The best you can do is move the camera slightly and shoot a lot.

JKT wrote:I'd say that focus the camera manually at infinity and use the zoom for cropping. Focusing is done by moving the camera. In some cameras you might get an "in focus" indication, but those are rare. The best you can do is move the camera slightly and shoot a lot.

That makes sense- it would've been handy if the instruction leaflet, or the camera shop, had pointed out that the autofocus wouldn't work with the attachment!

the autofocus wouldn't work with the attachment!

It should work.

I had the Canon S3 which I believe yours superseded and I did really well with an adapter and the Canon 500D close up lens. It's recommended for S3/S5 by Canon, and I believe it's +2 diopter. It's an achromat and quality is excellent, so good in fact that I still use it with my DSLR on the front of a 70-210 telephoto. Autofocus on the S3 wasn't a problem provided I stayed within the focussing range of about 12-20". If yours is a decent quality achromat then it should also work between, I guess, about 8-15".

Maximum magnification is at full zoom but pulling the zoom back will usually be necessary to get decent framing, and it also helps autofocus accuracy. I suggest you use aperture priority set between f6.3 and f8, watch the shutter speed and increase the iso to up to iso200 if you find your shots are blurred. Provided the butterfly isn't moving around a lot "IS" will enable you to get away with surprisingly slow shutter speeds, so experiment as the lower the iso you can get away with, the better the quality.

And above all, don't use the camera's macro function when using a close up adaptor!