What's the secret? - 56k warning

[spannerdude]

So I went and bought a 90mm Macro lens, took it out to christen it early one Sunday morning (10 O'Clock is early on a Sunday, right?), and ended up using my 70-210 to shoot the fauna anyway.
How do you guys get so close to wildlife without scaring it away?

Anyway, here are a few of my efforts....

 

[Lady Pitstop]

great set lovely vibrant colours

some of them could do with cropping (something to do with the thirds rule apparently - so I've been reading!!)

didn't look as though you scared many away but I guess maybe you should start dressing for the occasion get the camouflage out

 

[Gandhi]

How do you guys get so close to wildlife without scaring it away?

Patience and careful stalking.

Sometimes it helps just to sit still and wait for them to come to you.

Recently, I've been trying to watch how they behave and then use that to my advantage.

E.g. With the demoiselle's I posted (and this works where there are dragonflies too) I put a cane in the ground and then sat and waited for them to get used to my presence!

HTH?

Good shots btw, don't give up on the macro yet. It may help to practise on some static things first?

 

[spannerdude]

Thank you both for the encouragement.

So when I see the fantastic macro shots on this forum are they generally pretty severe crops? None of the shots I posted have been cropped greatly because I wanted to show the scale of my problem (pun intended).
Do you use a tripod?
With it being so difficult to creep up on the little bu**ers I came to the conclusion that I'd never be able to get a tripod set up but hand holding is not always ideal.
What about lighting? Is it worth trying bounced or diffused flash?

 

[Matt Charlton]

Just to show you what the lens can do:

I took these last year, handheld and not long after I got my 350d, I think the Tamron 90 was one of the first lenses I bought. Probably all shot in auto, before I learned about depth of field properly, these were all handheld with no cropping whatsoever and just experimenting in the inlaws garden mostly. Not the best macro shots in the world but it was more me finding out what I could do with it handheld - I know its capable of so much more with the right setup and patience

Its probably the least used lens in my bag, I'm really going to have to try again with it because I found it really fun to do.