Camelia Season

It's peak camelia growing season here in the Gulf Coast of Florida. My furniture maker friend, Leland, has a yard and greenhouse full of them. I wen't to his place last Sunday to get some pics, but put on my macro lens instead of the 300mm jobby. The DOF is very low with the macro, so some out of focus areas appear.


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Ed, It's not a problem with the Macro lens.

Macros have the same DOF limitations as most other lenses.

your EXIF Data says
Nikon D7000
105 mm f2.8 Lens
F3.5 1/3200

With such a wide aperture and (corresponding high shutter speed) no wonder your DOF is so limited.

I'm guessing you were about 2ft from the subject?
If so your DOF would only be ~0.15"

At F16 the DOF would be 0.7"
At F22 it would be 1"

You have plenty of light in the photo so even using the F16 setting you could hand hold the camera especially as it has a Ubeaut IS system

Even at F22 you might get away with it but I would recommend using a tripod on those type of shots.

The other thing you need to do is make sure you focus somewhere in the closer third of the flower rather than on the front edge of the flower - that way you will get more of the flower in focus. I generally reckon it's worth getting the reproductive parts of a flower in focus.

Thanks for your input, Bob. I am aware of the limitations of the Sigma, and your suggestions are right on.

What I have to learn to do is to pick up my camera bag, with my other lenses, when I leave the house!