Wow. Thanks for the good tutorial. I love macro, maybe because my eyesight is so bad every shot is a revelation. I haven't tried to actually take any macro shots. I'm still working up my nerve. This is a stellar photo. I loved hearing how you accomplished it.
I generally prefer manual focus for macro of any sort. In this case, I set the lens for its closest focus (1:1) and then just moved the camera until I got the focus where I wanted it to be, then fired.
That's actually a strategy that's used a lot for macro. The focus ring is thought of more as a magnification setting, and then focus is achieved by moving the camera to the correct distance from the subject to get the focus plane where you want it to be. Sometimes I adjust the focus ring while trying to focus on the subject, but really, I think of the focus ring as more of a "framing" adjustment because it sets what the subject-to-camera distance will have to be. Then the fine focus is accomplished by moving the camera position relative to the subject.
The autofocus of the EF-S 60 is excellent. It's actually the fastest autofocusing lens I've got. As long as you stay a few feet or more away from your subject, the lens just jumps into focus instantly. It'd be a fantastic sports lens because of it's rocket-fast AF. But...
But a big problem with any macro lens (and a lot of long focal length lenses, too) is that they've got the ability to be so far out of focus (due to their inherently low depth of field) that the image that the autofocus sensors "see" is often so badly out of focus that the AF system cannot determine which direction it needs to move the lens, let alone how far.
When you trigger AF when this is the case, the camera will try to find the focus point by initiating a slow-scan where it drives the lens slowly all the way to one lock and then back again to the opposite lock. All the while, it tries to find matching patterns between each of the selected AF point(s)' split images. If it happens to find a match while doing the scan, it'll then lock on. If not, it gives up at one end or the other of the lens' focus adjustment.
People wrongly call this "hunting". And I can see why they use that term, but "hunting" has an actual control-system meaning, and this action is not true control-loop hunting. It's actually a programmed last-resort "focus search" (as Canon calls it). On some cameras, you can disable focus search with a custom function.
People also blame this on a particular lens. You'll often see people say things like "That darn 100 macro, it really "hunts"." Well, no, it doesn't. The lenses do not control autofocus at all, actually. They just do what the body commands them to do. So if there was any "hunting", it'd be the body's fault. And the focus search mode is something that's triggered entirely because the body cannot determine what to do based on the extremely out of focus image it's being presented with. And that's not the lens's "fault". It's just an inherent characteristic of close-up shooting due to the shallow DOF.
Regardless, when you DO present the AF sensors in the camera with an image that's so blurry that it cannot arrive at a proper AF solution, you get the "focus search" (or if it's disabled, the lens does nothing). Focus search can really be a pain because you usually end up with focus farther off than when you initiated the AF cycle.
So most people (me included) just use manual focus for most macro work.
There are exceptions, though. You can use AI-Servo to track focus at macro distances with the 60 sometimes. The reason is that by tracking focus, the system never lets the image get so far out of focus that it loses its ability to determine distance and direction for the next AF movement. So it kind of works. But you must start off with the subject in fairly decent focus to begin with so the camera's AF sensors can make some sense of things initially.
Instead of tracking a moving subject, the AF system is tracking focus on a stationary subject while you move the camera, changing it's distance from that subject. It's the same net effect, I guess, just kind of a different application than we're used to.
If I'm shooting one-handed, I do attempt this at times. But I have the custom function on the camera set to remove AF from the half-press of the shutter button, and therefore, I can use the AF-On (or * button) as the only way to initiate AF. That allows me to quickly try AF but also NOT use it when it fails. That's handy!
If the AF is linked to the half-press of the shutter button, it'll mess up your focus any time you half-press the shutter! That's a pain to me.
The hardest part of all of this for me, and I'm sure most everyone, is being able to see the image on the focusing screen well enough to really judge focus properly. It's kind of tough. But I do use the Ef-S screen in the 40D, and that does help. And you kind of get a feel for it after a while, too.
But, as with this shot, one problem was that the sun was shining from my side, so with my glasses on (and I have to wear them to see the focusing screen), it's hard to exclude that light and it makes it harder to see the focusing screen. I actually do better shooting macro at night and using a bright flashlight to light up the subject for focusing because then I don't have extraneous light reflecting off of my glasses, etc.
I think one of those black hoods like the old view cameras had would be handy for daylight shooting!
Oh, one other key point about AF and MF when shooting macro. And this is a biggie:
There are a limited number of AF "points" in these cameras. And it's extremely rare that one of those points will end up being right where you're trying to place the plane of focus for a macro shot. And focus-lock-recompose doesn't work at all for macro shooting because if you use one of the focus points, then have to move the camera to regain your composition, you're always going to throw the focus off again.
So because you never have enough focus points to find one right where you need it, that also prohibits the use of autofocus most of the time. When I am trying to use AF to track focus when shooting one-handed, it's still just the "coarse" focus, or even just to track as I move closer or farther from the subject to, again, get the framing the way I want it. The final "fine" focus is always then "touched up" by manually moving the camera closer or farther from the subject.
Also, for macro shooting, it's good to cheat every way you possibly can. In the case of this shot, I was able to rest my left hand on the edge of the manhole cover on which this guy was sitting. It's often the case that you can hold the lens and bottom of the camera with part of your left hand, while using other parts of that hand as kind of a brace or tripod. You can change the shape of your hand very slightly to achieve very tiny up and down and back and forth movements of the camera while basically supporting it all by that hand which itself is supported by something solid under it.
So that really allows for a very fast but fine way to adjust the camera position.
The hopper would sit there and let me shoot him for a few shots, then he'd turn around 180 degrees and I'd have to move around to the other side of the manhole cover. We did this dance about four or five times. This shot is the last one I took of that series.
He was also bobbing back and forth from side to side slightly. I'm not sure, but maybe they do that to develop a better mental image of what their eyes are seeing. In this shot, he's kind of swayed over to his right, but he was swaying back and forth. It was kind of funny to watch.
Also, when I first saw him, I thought he was just a dull gray color. From a distance, it all blurs together, and I guess yellow mixed with blue must make kind of a bland color.
That was long! But hey, it's a subject I'm fond of :) Jim H.
