What camera/lens are you using to take these photos? I absolutely love macrophotography and these are fantastic! I bought a macro lens but I can't seem to get the depth of field you're getting here with it.
Hey, thanx, glad you enjoyed them.
Ad depth of field (DOF): Not all, but some of the photos I posted here are "stacked" (
focus stacking), can you tell which ones?
Ad DOF generally: Well, yes, welcome to world of macro photography.
Without knowing your setup, I'm almost sure there is nothing wrong with it. If I were forced to rank the most determining factors for DOF on the macro level, I would say:
- reproduction ratio, meaning the 'magnification'
- aperture as always, but on a macro level it matters more
- focal length
- stuff like sensor size, use of extention tubes etc.
So if you want to maximize DOF, keep the reproduction ratio moderate, below 1:1, but who the fuck wants that? Exactly, nobody. With higher magnification, DOF will sooner or later become razor thin, literally like a sheet of paper, but aperture still matters. You want to stop your lens down as much as possible, but not 'too much'. Personally I see no point of having a small increase in DOF, but my photos are all soft now due to e.g. diffraction, or sensor dust shows up, or lighting becomes problematic etc. (I've done all these with either f/8 or f/11.) I think knowing how your glass performs optically depending on aperture is key here! I assume you have a prime lens (fixed focal length, most macro lenses are..), so doing some test shots to figure this out is not that complicated and the benefits are lasting. Think about it! (Or if you have a popular lens, look for technical reviews on the web.)
But it's definitely not all about DOF, I feel. Composition matters greatly, e.g. one can place the subject plane-parallel to the sensor, like in photo 3 (which is not stacked): almost the whole body of the grass hopper is in focus, cause it's aligned respectively. And you can use a shallow DOF to your advantage too, like photo 2: of course it would have been cool to have everything in focus, but with this thing moving its tentacles and shit, that's just not going to happen (with stacking), but what's the main thing here? The head! So gently blurring out most of the rest helps guiding the eye, reduces distractions. Do you know what I mean? Anyway..
Was this of any help, or am I too 'space out'?
Ad my gear: PM..
Or other (macro) photography nerds, maybe. I was about to open the pipe to fill the rainwater barrel yesterday, walking by my cacti and succulents and discovered that a green hopper was chillin' on one of my peyote buttons, which are really eager to flower this year. This one alone popped out five already, as one can see in the pictures; ..I actually did some nice sunlight macros in spring of two pink flowers opening simultaneously. Anyway, I digress, ..so I had to fetch my camera and tried to take some photos.
*shame*, zoom in, can you see the texture of the eyes of this thing (even though the reproduction ratio isn't that high)? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the brown dot in the eyes is not functional and what's called "fake pupils", some kind of optical mimicry nature built in in a number of animal species for different reasons. I usually wanna find out, but it seems I'm somewhat satisfied with just knowing that it's a green grasshopper here. 
Maybe your clever app can identify the exact genus. Anyway, that's it.. 
And there is poop involved here too, did you notice? Should I have put the images inside the spoiler tag? This thing was literally squeezing out three solid sausages while I was trying to take pictures; not blaming anybody, I probably would have gotten the shits too if someone showed up out of nowhere, flashing me repeatedly for no reason, ..unasked. 
'
I feel the last two are kind of in between, I would have gone either with more contrast, more shadows to make them abstract, ..or trying to recover the highlights to make them silky high-key B&W photos. But it's your artistic choice of course. I still like..
It's like mentally leaning back, breathing out and getting swallowed up by some nostalgic stupor in which the world still felt okay. 
Give it a go..
