Spray and Pray Discovery

[mackguyver]

As I went out this weekend to grab a few final shots for my upcoming book, I ran into my typical macro nightmare - wind. it was probably 5-6mph on and off, but that's a veritable windstorm beyond 0.5x or higher and it never seems to stop moving. I could use a plamp (if I owned one) and shield of some sort (annoying to carry along), or the most obvious thing, flash. I'm not a fan of macro flash, at least in the field, so I try to shoot all my stuff with natural light if possible.

Unfortunately, it was overcast, and even at ISO 3200 on my tripod mounted 5DIII, I was dealing with speeds around 1/20s at f/5.6 and I needed f/16- f/22 to get sufficient DOF.

I decided to try spraying and praying, and was able to nail these two sharp photos (ratio was roughly 1 sharp shot to 12 blurry ones):

f/16, 1/13s, ISO 3200

and even more impressively f/22, 4/10s, ISO 1600:

Why oh why haven't I tried this before??? Obviously it's catching the subject during that imperceptible pause between movements. I will be doing this with windy landscapes in the future, too. Thought I would pass this along...

 

[docholliday]

Been doing this for years, even in the film days - the double-tap. It also works well with portrait work. Usually, the second frame gets better expression and no closed/closing eyes.

For macro, even with the MT-24ex, I will AI Servo and double-tap the frame. I also carry a few rolls of floral wire to wire up the subject if it gets too windy.

 

[mackguyver]

Thanks for the tips. Macro has been more of a personal thing on the side, but I'm starting to get more serious about and like all areas of photography, the learning never ends.

 

[SiliconVoid]

If it is not too windy (maybe a couple millimeters of movement of the subject) I will typically fire off 5-7 shots and then load those into PS to do some focus stacking - plus that works great with wider apertures..
=)

 

[Halfrack]

Also works for waterfalls - setup behind your umbrella, use a wired release cable and set the body to high speed continuous shooting. Lift the umbrella and start shooting, until the lens needs a wipe to remove spray. Repeat as needed.

Too bad we can't program the body to do focal stacking for us - I mean, it's a lens, at a static focal length, the amount of travel in the focus is know, set it to closest point, figure DoF based on Aperture, and move the focal point x distance each shot. Either that or let me pick a pattern on the AF and focus & shoot each point in the pattern.

 

[docholliday]

Also works for waterfalls - setup behind your umbrella, use a wired release cable and set the body to high speed continuous shooting. Lift the umbrella and start shooting, until the lens needs a wipe to remove spray. Repeat as needed.

Too bad we can't program the body to do focal stacking for us - I mean, it's a lens, at a static focal length, the amount of travel in the focus is know, set it to closest point, figure DoF based on Aperture, and move the focal point x distance each shot. Either that or let me pick a pattern on the AF and focus & shoot each point in the pattern.

Now that gives a new meaning to "spray and pray".

 

[Grumbaki]

Bread and butter of portraits, specially candids, where a micro expression change all the picture.

I had 7 of those spread over something like 1.2 seconds. All shots where good but this one is far superior due to the 1ms look she gave me.
http://500px.com/photo/41843186

 

[thenickdude]

Too bad we can't program the body to do focal stacking for us - I mean, it's a lens, at a static focal length, the amount of travel in the focus is know, set it to closest point, figure DoF based on Aperture, and move the focal point x distance each shot. Either that or let me pick a pattern on the AF and focus & shoot each point in the pattern.

You can do precisely this on a Canon camera if you can install the Magic Lantern firmware onto it. I use it to focus stack in my "studio" for figurine images.

 

[jdramirez]

when hand holding, my first shot is for my finger depression, my second shot I expect to be stable.