Ok, so in an effort to redeem myself I cooked dinner the next day (I do cook, pretty well if I may say so myself) and tried a few photos with my standby 28mm-135mm lens. I did have to break a few rules of composition to avoid taking a picture of an unsightly range burner or stray bottle of vinegar in the background, but I think it came out pretty well. This shot was beautifully backlit by the range hood’s light (believe it or not, this seems to work quite well) with a bit of ambient light from the overheads in the kitchen behind me. White balance was a little painful, but I think it came out in the end – this is a really critical piece for culinary photography! A poor white balance can completely ruin the appearance of food.

Capellini Puttanesca

Ok, and if you’re interested here’s the recipe. I love this stuff, and it’s really easy.

1 box Angel Hair Pasta
1 lbs Crawfish (tail meat), or substitute shrimp, crab, etc
2 cans Diced Tomatoes (get the kind with green chilies, and drain most of the liquid)
1 bulb Garlic
1 cup Fresh Basil
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste
Garnish with Parsley and Grated Parmesan Cheese

Chop the garlic into rough slices (This will result in garlic that maintains a bit of it’s raw flavor. If you don’t like that, mince it instead). Shred the Basil and set aside.

Boil water per directions on pasta box, salt to taste.

While the water is heating, add olive oil to a large pan and warm over medium heat. When the oil thins and begins to flow, add the garlic. Saute 2 min, then add oregano, salt, and pepper to taste. Continue to saute until garlic begins to brown around edges.

Turn heat to high and add tomatoes, stirring until mixture begins to bubble. Turn heat back to medium and add basil. Mix in basil and let cook 2 min. Cover and turn heat the medium-low.

Add pasta to boiling water. Cook to short end of package directions, or about 6 min. Drain pasta.

Add pasta and crawfish to sauce pan, mix thoroughly. Cover and cook 5 min.

Serve immediately, garnish with parsley and grated Parmesan cheese.

Focusing becomes critical – this is no time to rely on your camera’s autofocus. My Canon 40D generally has a great autofocus, and the ultrasonic motor in my 100mm macro lens is smooth and fast . . . but it’s still no match for a flying bumblebee. The key is to focus fast and then snap a couple shots as you incrementally adjust the focus ring. With a focal plane of a couple millimeters, it’s nearly impossible to tell through the viewfinder whether you are focused on the bee”s head or just a stray hair on its back that is pointed towards the camera. And the autofocus obviously has the same problem. In addition to the fact that when you try to focus on an object that is moving in and out of the focal plane, the autofocus will never manage to get a good lock – it will scan the macro focus range, not find anything, then focus way out in standard mode at which point it probably picks up a tree or something in the background. There goes your beautiful bumblebee photo, because by the time you get your bearings and crank the focus ring back down to macro range it’s gone.

I”ve saved the best for last though . . . I had been frustrated with my inability to create depth in my photos with my macro lens since everything that needs to be in focus has to be in the same plane. Turns out you can trick the eye substantially by rotating the camera. Keep the plane of the lens perpendicular to the subject, but just rotate the camera so that your object spans diagonally across the image. It means thinking a little differently about composition, but it works.

Your other option for creating depth of course is artificial lighting (so that you can use smaller apertures and increase your focal depth). Your flash is not likely to help because the barrel of the lens will cast a shadow on the subject at close proximity. That’s why camera companies make ringlights which mount to the end of the lens. Unfortunately, ringlights are expensive and have a serious drawback – they create perfectly flat lighting. Oh, and they are heavy and bulky, though they do have the advantage of interfacing perfectly with your hotshoe. Anyway. The solution here is to mount a couple LEDs on flexible “antennae” that you can switch on and off. Attach them to your camera, and you should have a perfectly flexible miniature studio for dynamic lighting of small things This is my next project, I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

By the way, the above photos were taken at the Cincinnati Nature Center – a privately owned and amazingly well kept nature preserve that is open to the public. It’s beautiful and secluded, tucked away in Milford . . . I highly recommend it

And yes, I know that I’m getting double apostrophes in my posts and that some of my old images have disappeared . . . working on that – I switched servers recently (upgraded to a dedicated system! ) and it’s screwing with my WordPress installation. Anyway, hopefully just a temporary issue!

The macro lens does work as a standard 100mm lens quite well, with no additional considerations. Personally I find the 100mm focal length to be a bit awkward for framing, but that”s just me. The only real difference is in closeup shots – I could stick my face a foot away from my subject and still have the 100mm magnification power, but because there is very little incident light when you get this close to a subject the f/stop is usually at its minimum . . . resulting in a miniscule focal depth.

To illustrate, here”s a friendly little salamander I found on the trail. Both shots were taken with the macro, though you can clearly tell that the side view shot had little need for a deep focal plane. The head-on shot was not modified at all – the amount of blur you see is due strictly to the depth (or lack thereof) of the focal plane.

Both of the above images were taken in full daylight with no flash. Ok, well it was filtered daylight since it was foggy, but this was definitely not in the shade. I love the detail in this little guy”s face (though he wasn”t too sure about having my giant camera lens 6″ away from his nose), but I think the excessive amount of blurring along his body really damages this shot. Out of focus would have been fine, but that”s downright blurry. Oh well, live and learn.