Micro macro

[mguerra]

This little flower was no more than 3/8" across. I took the photo laying flat on my belly with the camera lens no more than 2 inches away. It was overcast and I used the natural light. The wind was blowing like a damn hurricane so I tried to brace the tiny stem with a rock. I don't find the rock that distracting, it's just what I had to do to get a shot in the raging wind.The lens was a 50mm Canon 1.4 prime on a 36mm Kenko extension tube. So that's not a macro lens per se. I hand held the camera, took a big exhale, tried to focus by moving my entire torso fore and aft a mm at a time, with my elbows jammed in to my sides and dug in to the dirt, fstop I think was 2ish, Canon EOS 7D in aperture priority. Auto ISO. I had no idea what I was doing. Trying to hand hold the lens, focus with total body motion, and hold still while popping the shutter was insane! The background was just dirt and detritus and I made no attempt to clean it up nor alter it. I'm a one week old photog. All last night I was scheming ways to firmly fix a camera 3'' from the ground, and perpendicular to the ground, on micro-geared rail brackets and all kinds of stuff, but then I got a real macro lens today. Voila! You don't have to get that close, do you? My little macro rig of a 50mm prime and an extension tube is a demanding setup. My real macro Tamron 180 lets you back way off and just use a tripod. Revelations for a newb! Love this new hobby.

[MSidPhoto]

Indeed this would come out much better using a real macro lens as you can see, there is a lack of sharpness in this one. Firstly what you could do to improve this photo is crop out the the sides and focus on your subject. Secondly, you can do a lot of post processing on this photo. Increase the contrast, sharpness and you can even try to convert this photo into a B&W. I'm sure it would look pretty good.
Good luck
P.S: Have fun with your new macro lens

[LoveDSLR]

Besides some basic post processing, crop out anything that doesn't add to your photo.

[mguerra]

Thanks for the advice, here's the changes I made in iPhoto:

[MSidPhoto]

Hey Michael.
Now you can see for youreself that it looks better. Try the other adjustments too that i mentioned above when you get time. I hope they add much more to your photo.