wildflower season

[monstermum]

I have been experimenting with my 50mm lens and my magnifying filters (diopters I believe they are called?)
I played around with the aperture, shutter speed, distance from the subjects and found interesting results.
I would like to know about focusing.
1) Where on the subject do you put your focus when using these filters? Is it just a matter of preference?
2) Is it always necessary to sharpen the photo in pp when using the filters? I did use this tool as the original photo's seemed a bit soft to me.


_MG_1697 by *monstermum, on Flickr
Camera Canon EOS 50D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/750)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
The diopters I used were Marumi +1,+2 and +4 close-up (all together).
As I am only allowed to post one photo in this thread I would invite you to look at the others in my wildflower set here..wildflowers Sept 2011 - a set on Flickr
and I would appreciate any critique you could give me to help me get better photo's.

thanks,
mm

[Jo.T]

Using filters won't change how you focus or where, it does come down to personal preference and what part of the flower you really want to show. Try single focus point and then you can move the points around so it is not dead centre, this will give you more flexibility with your composition.
The softness of your photos is more to do with DOF, with macro you only get mm in focus the larger the f stop the more DOF you will get, you have used f5.6 or smaller on all of your photos try using the full range up to f22 and see the difference. Keep in mind that generally you will get 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind your focal point in focus.
I have added a DOF calculator that may help

Online Depth of Field Calculator

Cheers Jo

Ps i always do a slight sharpen on all of my pics

[monstermum]

thanks! I hope to get back out when the rain stops, so I can try again. I have gone back over previous postings and read more about DOF and I think something is beginning to make sense.
I appreciate your reply!