Focus On: Underwater Macro Photography – 60mm

Following on with my theme of photo posts about the gear I’m selling. For the first of two posts on macro lenses underwater, today I’d like to showcase some of the photos I’ve taken with the 60mm macro + Nikon D300 and give you all some simple general macro tips.

60mm macro lens

Equipment:

• Nikon D300 + Subal Housing for D300 (£2000)
• 60mm macro lens + Subal flat port (£375)
• 2 Inon z240 strobes (not for sale)

I still think that the crop sensor DX cameras make the best underwater cameras for macro. People who switch to full frame often struggle with what they found quite simple on DX. I know several professional underwater photographers who moved to full frame for their wide angle shots only and still use the Nikon D300 as their macro set up. And this 60mm is my favourite lens to use. The reason being is it is super fast at auto focus with much less of the “hunting” of some of the newer lenses I’ve used. This is essential when your tiny creature or fish is moving about and you are slightly moving too (we all have to breathe occasionally). The light weight of it is another plus for me personally. I dont have very strong wrists (too much computer work has given me RSI which is the reason I’m selling all this gear and finally moving back to a smaller camera).

Here are some photos from last year (some of these might look very familiar for regular readers of my blog) – click them for larger:

As you can see, you can get very close, in fact I think it would probably focus right on the front of the port (although it would be hard to light a subject that close)! The blue background in this image above is actually starfish skin. This little tiny shrimp lives on the starfish for a free ride.

I love blennies and the quick focus of this set up allowed me to capture this one yawning in 2011.

As well as the capacity for macro the 60mm lens is wide enough for portraits of bigger fish such as this batfish being cleaned:

The 60mm allowed me a closer working distance to this cardinal fish with eggs in his mouth. All the other cardinal fish were hanging around so close that had I tried to take this photo with the 105mm macro there would have been two or three fish between me and him for the same framing.

My top simple tips for macro:

• Get down to eye level (if you can without damaging the reef), your images will be more full of ye contact and impact.
• For any critters with eyes try to always make sure eyes are in focus.
• To get the eyes and mouth in focus, for shallow DOF photos, focus between the eyes and the mouth. It will be in focus 1/3 in front of the focus point and 2/3 behind the focus point.
• If you find your lens hunts for focus (this one does not but many macro lenses do) when don’t be afraid to switch the camera to manual focus and move the camera back & forth to focus).
• If your camera allows (most camera these days are fairly customisable), try to have one button access to 100% zoom in on your photo. For example on the D300 I set the middle button (between the arrows) to toggle between 100% and zoomed out for quickly checking eye focus on macro shots with shallow DOF.
• Check your LCD histogram rather than relying on LCD brightness to check for exposure.
• Sometimes it’s hard to see the settings in the little screen on the top of a DSLR camera without flattening your subject, on the Nikon D300, the little info button (it looks like a key if I remember correctly) displays that whole screen on the LCD when in shooting mode.

This was one of the first underwater shots I took with my DLSR system in a swimming pool with Martin Edge!

I hope you liked my stroll down memory lane with my 60mm macro set up for the Nikon D300. As I said at the top of the post I’m currently selling that set up. Buy for only £2375 (camera, lens, housing and port)! Click here for more details & the full list of equipment for sale Thanks for supporting my work!