What area are you looking to improve on? I see several possibilities, and they'll require interventions in quite different parts of the process.
Image 3 looks problematic, like missed focus or camea vibration or something. A potentially nice image, though.
The other images might be possibly helped by use of reflectors, either white or black, to balance the luminance range of the scene. But I'm not too offended by the blown highlights in 1 and 2...
How are you metering? A spot meter might give a lot of very valuable information to consider regarding hte exposure aspect.
Usually macrophotographers tend to want to show the fine detail of their subjects -- which suggests a fine grain film. Unfortunately, fine grain films are usually LOW ISO films -- which means longer exposure times (possible blurring), or wider apertures (less DOF), or flash use (possible harsh light), or a tripod (awkward, of course). There's no free lunch.
Check out CLOSE-UP PHOTOGRAPHY by Lefkowitz and FIELD PHOTOGRAPHY by Blaker.
When shooting macro I use a tripod whenever possible, a cable release or remote and mirror lockup. For fine detail I use Tmax 100 at 200LPM and finest grain of any general purpose black and white film. There are microfiche film that resolve much more than Tmax but tones may not be to your liking and generally are a bit slower. If your Nikon has a depth of field preview I would use it, decide if you need more depth of field, the image of the angle not sure what you were focusing on, nothing seems to be in sharp focus. If you decide on getting into macro work as you have an AIS lens you might to add a Nikon Bellows and a ring flash.
The issue of focus is a fundamental challenge of macro work, and there are a variety of 'solutions' that can be used to try to address an inherent problem.
As a rank beginner, all you should attempt is first ensuring that your primary subject features are in sharp focus (and with no camera motion blur). What post #7 mentions are fundamentals employable in any aspect of photograpy, their uses simply are singificantly more important in macro work.
And THEN slowly adopt the use of increasingly advanced methods for increasing the amount of the subject seen with sharpness. Each takes time to master.
Your issue of highlights blown out is not specific to macro work, but inherent to photography of objects (sometimes referred to 'product photography'). That is, generally speaking, dealt with by control of subject lighting brightness range.. It can involve metering very selective areas using spotmeter to assess the brightness range of highlights vs. shadows, and controlling the lighting to better fit withing the range which can be captured by the film:
This can be quite simplistic, or can be extremely complex and time consuming to implement, in part due to inherent technical complexity of the object being photographed. Again, methods used can take time to initially implement, and more time to master.
- (already mentioned) the use of light reflectors to add light
- (and non-white panels to cut light reflected to the lens' view)
- and/or use of angles of subject and/or wisely in the placement of light sources.
Thanks xkaes. Somebody on this forum recommended a close-up photography book by Heather Angel. I bought it a couple months ago. It was very helpful. I will take a look at the books you recommended. Jim
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