Sharpness problems

[TMG1961]

Hi everyone, I just got started with macro photography. Using a sony a6400 with laowa 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and a meike speedlight mk320. The biggest problem i have is getting sharp photos. I use focus peaking so that i can see what is in focus. I use aperture between f/8 and f/11. I added a photo, aperture was f/11 and the entire little plant was covered by the focus peaking colour. But to me the photo is not completely sharp. Am i doing something wrong?

 

[TMG1961]

I wasn’t aware of this info, that Sony doesn’t have iso priority. The only thing which I can recommend is to learn stacking techniques.

Hope @Sergey Prokofiev can add some light here as he is owning Sony cameras as well.

The sony a6400 doesn't have in body photo stacking. Has to be done manual. For now i focus on getting the basics covered and be able to get sharp focused photos.

 

[MikeB]

Hi everyone, I just got started with macro photography. Using a sony a6400 with laowa 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and a meike speedlight mk320. The biggest problem i have is getting sharp photos. I use focus peaking so that i can see what is in focus. I use aperture between f/8 and f/11. I added a photo, aperture was f/11 and the entire little plant was covered by the focus peaking colour. But to me the photo is not completely sharp. Am i doing something wrong?

First of all, focus-peaking is great but it does not cause miracles to happen. I have no idea how big these flowers are and how far they were from the lens but with the details you gave (Sony A6400, 100mm Laowa at F11) I plugged those into a DOF calculator and got only about 0.27cm of DOF. That is a tiny sliver. If you shot handheld, merely breathing deeply would have moved your subject out of the optimum DOF.

Solutions may include shooting from a tripod, decreasing the aperture even further (at the risk of introducing further unsharpness due to diffraction or focus stacking (not in-camera) by taking a few shots with tiny movements of the focus ring in between and combining those on the computer.

 

[Jack]

The sony a6400 doesn't have in body photo stacking. Has to be done manual. For now i focus on getting the basics covered and be able to get sharp focused photos.

You don’t need to have built in focus stacking option with in camera body, there isn’t one in canon body either, but people still achieving photo stacking By taking multiple pictures of same subject focused on different areas, and after you can stack the images on Photoshop or other programs which does stacking images.

 

[MinitecaPhotographie]

IF i use flash then it is max 1/160 (max flash sync time sony a6400) With the Laowa lens i cant use TTL, it is a complete manual lens

TTL is the flash mode nothing to do with the lens. It's the camera that mesure the light incoming and adjust the flash power.

 

[TMG1961]

TTL is the flash mode nothing to do with the lens. It's the camera that mesure the light incoming and adjust the flash power.

When i attach my Sony 55-210 lens to the body then TTL works, if i change the aperture the flashlight takes over the changed aperture. But when i attach the Laowa lens and i change the aperture the flash stays at f/3.5 even when it is set on the lens at another setting. Isn't TTL supposed to use the cameras aperture setting? Or am i completely wrong about that?

 

[Jack]

Slightly confused as well. I own TTL flash, and what i noticed, is when i do change the zoom on my lens, the flash automatically changes settings as well. Unless I'm wrong something MinitecaPhotographie .

I don't think the flash works with camera settings at all TMG1961 . Mostly with the lens.

 

[MinitecaPhotographie]

When i attach my Sony 55-210 lens to the body then TTL works, if i change the aperture the flashlight takes over the changed aperture. But when i attach the Laowa lens and i change the aperture the flash stays at f/3.5 even when it is set on the lens at another setting. Isn't TTL supposed to use the cameras aperture setting? Or am i completely wrong about that?

You have to give to your camera the convert table because the 100mm doesn't give it the right aperture value, just the position of the diaphragm.

 

[TMG1961]

You have to give to your camera the convert table because the 100mm doesn't give it the right aperture value, just the position of the diaphragm.

I don't know what you mean by this. All i know is that when i attach the sony 55-210 or the sony 16-50 lens and put the speedlight in TTL mode i can see the correct aperture in the speedlights lcd screen. When i change the aperture in camera the aperture in speedlight changes also to new aperture value. When i do that with the laowa lens and change the aperture on the lens the speedlight aperture in lcd screen stays on f/3.5.

 

[MikeB]

The Laowa is an awesome lens for Canon and Pentax shooters as they are the only mount versions of this lens which have aperture coupling. Laowa itself states on the site: "Only Canon EF version is equipped with a CPU chip and motor for aperture control via the camera. All other mounts are manual and aperture is controlled by the aperture ring on the lens". The Pentax version was only released last year and it too has the Pentax KA mount with the "A" position on the aperture ring of the lens.

As most cameras choose a fixed X-synchronization speed (either 1/125 or 1/160) any TTL flash must have information about the aperture in order to calculate the appropriate full-power output following a TTL pre-flash. Once that is lacking, the flash can only be used in a manual way and the automatic head-zooming will be disabled.

 

[TMG1961]

The Laowa is an awesome lens for Canon and Pentax shooters as they are the only mount versions of this lens which have aperture coupling. Laowa itself states on the site: "Only Canon EF version is equipped with a CPU chip and motor for aperture control via the camera. All other mounts are manual and aperture is controlled by the aperture ring on the lens". The Pentax version was only released last year and it too has the Pentax KA mount with the "A" position on the aperture ring of the lens.

As most cameras choose a fixed X-synchronization speed (either 1/125 or 1/160) any TTL flash must have information about the aperture in order to calculate the appropriate full-power output following a TTL pre-flash. Once that is lacking, the flash can only be used in a manual way and the automatic head-zooming will be disabled.

Still not sure about the lens, done some handheld and tripod shots. The quality of the photos is terrible. This is the best tripod shot. Used focus peaking and the entire insect was showing up red. f/22 - iso100 - 1/160 sec with flash