Went for a walk today as its the first weekend in a few that Ive decided to be "non working" and refuse to do any tidbits of work. It can all wait till the start of next week!

So, 8.5 miles later and Ive filled my memory card up (450ish photos) with pics of dragonflies.

Using a Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 DG Macro lens.

The results are below, and these are my BEST results. I am trying to decide how much of the blur is my ineptitude at photography, and how much is down to the quality of the lens. I mean, it costs ~£70, as opposed to the £200+ "proper" macro lenses.

Im guessing its mostly me as sometimes I do get some good shots, but nearly always when using the lens the end product is slightly out of focus or extremely soft at the least.

I love the top one and the spider.

Id crop the top one so the insect is in the middle of the frame or crop it so that its long and thin and its at one end of the picture.

Youll pickup the rule of 3rds the longer youve been taking photos.  Course the thing is even when you take photos using it the rule doesnt always work so sometimes its easier to break the rule and just take the photo rather than bugger about trying to conform to something that doesnt always work.

I find thats part of macro photography, your bound to get lots that are blurry as you adjust things.  One thing that might help is a remote release, got one last year and it helped me get this one.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3175/3072016906_b07101d615.jpg

But I did read somewhere online recently saying that you shouldnt use a tripod for macro photography but that you just need good light, especially for bugs.

Put camera on tripod and a remote release will allow you to reduce the impact of pushing the button to an absolute minimum.

Not useful if you are doing it hand held though.

I wouldnt bother too much in macro with thirds, you are after the subject, not the surrounding greenage.

Thats one of the reasons I went for a monopod, its not as clumsy to carry as a tripod and its not too bad at steadying the camera.

what aperture were you using Zpyder? its hard to tell sharpness from small versions on the forum, but the one which looks to me most "unsharp" is the 3rd one. Given that some of the shots appear to be quite acceptable (the 4th one looks good), Id suggest the following possibilities:

1. Consumer grade long zooms like this one tend to be soft wide open, particularly at the long end. This is made worse by the close focus which really stretches the capabilities of the glass. Keep the lens stopped down to about F8 if you can and you should see an improvement.

2. Focusing at macro distances is critical, and its very easy to drift off once you have acquired focus.

Cheers mongoose.

The pictures should link to the flickr pictures, which also have the full sized ones available. Im not sure what aperture they were, but think they were all mostly around thr 5.6 mark.

I think for what I want a 100mm macro lens would be useful, though really a 200mm lens would be better as generally my subject is either botanical or entomological, or both. And quite often if its a plant its in a place that wont allow me to get close!

a 90mm would make a reasonable portrait lens too, although slightly long for the smaller digital sensors.

The shorter lens is probably going to have a better f number, meaning faster exposures and possibly less blur. You might need to get a bit closer to the subject but it wont amplify any movements you put in anywhere near as much.