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Been taking more macro shots of inanimate stuff lately. _MG_0233 by wallofinsanity, on Flickr  regularly inspect your brake pads by wallofinsanity, on Flickr
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Sep 18, 2013 01:20
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I just got a reversing ring in the mail, cobbled together a macro rig and tried it out yesterday. No joke, getting a usable shot is hard.
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Sep 18, 2013 17:34
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Atticus_1354 posted:My problem is when I am out at night I have normally been drinking which doesn't help me take good pictures. Booze + Macro + Wireless Flash = FUN From a while ago, but on the evening I discovered the above Timeless Knowledge.  SD 114 Bruny Part 4 Macro on the beach 13 by Execudork, on Flickr
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Sep 18, 2013 22:55
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800peepee51doodoo posted:I just got a reversing ring in the mail, cobbled together a macro rig and tried it out yesterday. No joke, getting a usable shot is hard. Beautiful shot
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Sep 18, 2013 22:57
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Ropes4u posted:Beautiful shot Hey thanks! Can anyone recommend a good flash bracket for a 1D? I went trawling through ebay, amazon, b&h, etc and everything I've seen for macro seems set up for a standard sized DSLR. Anyone using a bracket with a battery grip or a 1D? I could just make one out of aluminum flatstock I guess but I'd rather have something that's adjustable. Anyone use those gorilla pod style brackets with the bendy arms? They look like they might suck but they might also be rad. Oh, and does anyone use focus lights? I can't see poo poo through the viewfinder with a stopped down reversed lens, 60-some-odd-mm of extension tubes and and a diffused flashgun blocking out the sun.
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Sep 19, 2013 04:57
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Bob Mundon posted:If you were to combine it with extension tubes, what kind of stuff could you do? You could push the maximum magnification well past 1:1, although potentially at the cost of some optical quality as you push the lens further outside of its design envelope. I've never tried the 60mm on extension tubes, but it would probably be OK. You may find that reversing it once you start using longer extensions gives better quality at higher magnification (although aperture control would be problematic).
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Sep 19, 2013 14:09
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I'm more about flowers than bugs... DSC01390.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01244.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01388.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01341.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01259.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01248.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr  DSC01241.jpg by 総理外人, on Flickr
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Sep 26, 2013 06:08
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 1:1 on a sony 30mm macro lens. Wonderful working distance of about 2cm from the front element.
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Sep 27, 2013 02:25
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Un chien andalou posted:
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Sep 28, 2013 21:54
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Found this lethargic wasp sitting on a leaf trying to get warm. IMG_4473 by ruut103, on Flickr  IMG_4483 by ruut103, on Flickr Autumn is in full swing so less opportunities for bug macros 
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Sep 29, 2013 13:02
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Shot these with my Kenko tubes & the 50mm f1.8, on a Canon 60D. Honeybees   Tomato Hornworm  
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Sep 30, 2013 18:42
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Finally got a chance to test the Lomo 3.7x/0.11 microscope objective I ordered months ago. It's very sharp across the field, so for $35 it's a winner in my book.  Lomo 3.7x/0.11 Test by spongepuppy, on Flickr
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Oct 5, 2013 04:48
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I took a few shots today with a raynox DCR-250 on a 100mm macro. Butterfly on Yarrow  Fly spongepuppy, after some of your posts here I bought a Lomo 9x 0.20 off of ebay. I either bought the wrong lens, my copy is jacked up, or (most likely) I don't know what I'm doing. I get really terrible contrast. I forget how far I set the bellows, but if I screwed that up would I get crappy performance? This is my first stab at a finite objective. I've used infinite objectives with pretty good success before.
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Oct 7, 2013 00:13
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Blacking out the silver trim ring helped, from memory. You may also need to fashion a short hood over the objective, because the one I have looks to be single-coated (or maybe even uncoated). The tube length is 160mm, less 10mm, so you want the distance from the objective shoulder to the sensor plane to be around 150mm. For my Nikon, that ends up being about 105mm of bellows. You can use shorter extension, but the edges get worse and worse the more you push the magnification down. I actually prefer the Lomo 9x to the Nikon 10x - the Nikon is optically better, but it's a pain in the rear end to work with because the working distance is so much shorter. So far I'm really impressed with the 3.7x, which is *nearly* an APO lens as far as I can tell. It's really contrasty, too.
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Oct 7, 2013 01:26
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spongepuppy posted:Blacking out the silver trim ring helped, from memory... From reading more about it I think it's the fact that I'm using one of those cone shaped M42 - RMS adapters. Apparently I missed the note that they universally cause lovely glare if you don't line them with black flocking material. I am just going to buy a flat adapter and put it on my bellows instead. Thanks for the tipoff. I have been checking around and haven't seen any Lomo 3.7x objectives on ebay. It sounds appealing. I recently switched to a full frame setup and my infinite objective doesn't fill the frame anymore unless I push the tube lens to 300mm or more. It's more magnification than I want most of the time so I am going to try to find something more around 3-5x.
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Oct 9, 2013 20:29
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The coral fungi are starting to come up in my local forests. 
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Oct 11, 2013 00:12
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Cool little red dragonfly. Lots of these guys flying around the Karijini National Park here in Western Australia. 
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Oct 12, 2013 14:35
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Some pictures of things that aren't bugs and flowers: RBY by spongepuppy, on Flickr  RY by spongepuppy, on Flickr  BY by spongepuppy, on Flickr
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Oct 20, 2013 04:41
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spongepuppy posted:Some pictures of things that aren't bugs and flowers: hipstertshirt.jpg j/k these are super interesting and cool looking Still trying out macro and mostly failing:  I know nothing about fungus so I don't have an ID. Probably something super common. I also mucked up the focus but this was the best of the bunch.  My first try at a focus stack. I screwed this one up too; totally didn't see the grass in the shot until I got it on the computer. Oh well, still learning.
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Oct 21, 2013 00:55
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I haven't posted a macro shot in ages. Here's a couple of sea critters: 
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Oct 24, 2013 16:35
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I decided to give this macro thing a go... I give you the "BUGHUNTER MKI"  Canon 60D 430ex with A pringles tube cut at an angle with a tupperware container on the end Cheap poo poo extension tubes Sigma 28-70 EX DG (extended to 70mm)* Did it work? gently caress YEAH!  I can see me having fun with this. * does anyone know why this lens only macros at 70mm? If it's crazy lens science I understand but it just seems strange.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:49
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AceClown posted:* does anyone know why this lens only macros at 70mm? If it's crazy lens science I understand but it just seems strange. Its probably just that the magnification ratio at 70mm hits some arbitrary number that Sigma feels comfortable advertising as "macro". Unless you're saying you get a shorter minimum focus distance at 70mm which would be weird. Usually you get closer focusing at the shorter end of a zoom with tubes and therefore greater magnification. I can get a little better than 1:1 on my Sigma 70-200 "macro" with a full set of tubes at the 70mm end. Here's a page with a macro magnification calculator. One thing I found that is kind of cool about using a zoom for a macro is that you can use the zoom function as a focus. It seems to work a little better than the focus ring itself, especially when you're trying to find the subject in the viewfinder.
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Oct 25, 2013 21:13
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AceClown posted:* does anyone know why this lens only macros at 70mm? If it's crazy lens science I understand but it just seems strange. I think they figure that anything in the 1:4 - 1:2 range justifies throwing "macro" into the name. Tamron used to do this a lot with their "Tele Macro" zooms. I have a couple them - one is a 35-135 where you get a whole lot of extra travel in the focus mechanism once you zoomed to 135mm - which gives 0.25x magnification at closest focus. It's a push-pull design, so you can't zoom back out until you focus at the minimum focus distance for the rest of the range, but it does work pretty well in a pinch once you stop down a little bit.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:56
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Sorry guys, I didn't explain correctly. What I meant was when I put the extension tubes on nothing will come in to focus unless I extend the lens to it's full 70mm. Same with the 18-55, it will only work if it's at full 55mm. Neither of these lenses are actual macro lenses.
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Oct 26, 2013 11:10
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Depending on its design, the plane of focus might actually be inside the lens at those focal lengths (with the amount of extension you're using). You may find that reversing those lenses gives you more flexibility at wider focal lengths, if you can get away with it - if you can't use less extension, that is. Edit: I have had trouble with wide-angle lenses on extension tubes for exactly this reason. Dia de Pikachutos fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 13:09
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spongepuppy posted:Depending on its design, the plane of focus might actually be inside the lens at those focal lengths (with the amount of extension you're using). You may find that reversing those lenses gives you more flexibility at wider focal lengths, if you can get away with it - if you can't use less extension, that is. Yeah I did think that may be the case, just wondered if it was something I was doing wrong. Either way I loving love this setup. 
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Oct 26, 2013 18:24
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 Cardinal Beetle
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Oct 27, 2013 18:42
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 GBTB, 2013 by alkanphel, on Flickr
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Oct 29, 2013 01:14
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hey guys, even more by Iananan, on Flickr this is the most interesting recent macro shot, not really because of its subject (though a hand-embroidered bee is pretty cool),but because it was taken with my newly build weird macro extender LED lighting rig.
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Nov 11, 2013 00:33
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What's that magnifying adapter that gets brought up in here a lot? I think it's about 80 bucks and starts with an r?
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Dec 9, 2013 05:12
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Ninja Toast! posted:What's that magnifying adapter that gets brought up in here a lot? I think it's about 80 bucks and starts with an r? I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the Raynox adapter. Both the DCR-150 and DCR-250 are quite good, I personally use the -250 version (2.5x mag) and it's handy to have even with a dedicated macro lens.
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Dec 9, 2013 05:24
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Loving my new stackshot. I'm hoping to assemble a shooting stage over the holidays this month. Just some wood and rails bolted together so I don't have to keep putting things together and breaking them down every time I want to shoot. Fly
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Dec 9, 2013 07:05
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Graniteman posted:Loving my new stackshot. I'm hoping to assemble a shooting stage over the holidays this month. Just some wood and rails bolted together so I don't have to keep putting things together and breaking them down every time I want to shoot. That is awesome! That stackshot thing looks really interesting, can't wait to see what you can do with it fully set up! A little bit after I posted about the DCR-250 I caught this eastern carpenter ant (C. pennsylvanicus) trying to find some warmth. Figured I'd keep it indoors for the night in exchange for a photo shoot.   D7000, Nikon/Nikkor 55mm Micro/DCR-250/Single flash diffused over the top on a glass desk.
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Dec 9, 2013 20:00
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That's the one, PreyingMantits. Thanks. That picture was taken with one of those? I just use tubes and an old manual minolta 50 (or one of my cheapish canon lenses) so I thought that could give me a nice bump.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:23
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Ninja Toast! posted:That's the one, PreyingMantits. Thanks. That picture was taken with one of those? I just use tubes and an old manual minolta 50 (or one of my cheapish canon lenses) so I thought that could give me a nice bump. No problem! Sure was. I honestly haven't had much luck with extension tubes for the magnification I'd like. They tend to make my viewfinder so dark that I have trouble finding where to focus. The Raynox doesn't really darken anything but the DOF is quite shallow through the viewfinder. After some practice you get used to it. Step down to around f/8 to 11 and watch for the closest eye to come into focus then shoot.
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Dec 10, 2013 03:59
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How about some cacti? Cactus by venusian-weasel, on Flickr  Cactus by venusian-weasel, on Flickr  Cactus by venusian-weasel, on Flickr
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Dec 10, 2013 06:27
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PREYING MANTITS posted:That is awesome! That stackshot thing looks really interesting, can't wait to see what you can do with it fully set up! Thanks! But I have to say that I think the stackshot is more about convenience than enabling new shots (at least at ~10:1 magnification or less). I have a cheap $50 adorama brand macro rail which I have used to do focus stacking images. It's hard to turn the knob by hand just enough to move the plane of focus, but it can be done. The shot below was by hand.  But 10:1 is really the limit of what I can do by hand. I just can't make finer adjustments than that. And I do screw up 1/3 of shots by hand because I turn the knob too far at least once and end up with an out of focus band. And as you know from your excellent carpenter ant shot you don't need focus stacking to get great macro images. Just for a particular kind of high magnification shooting of static (often dead) subjects where you want the most possible depth of field.
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Dec 10, 2013 21:02
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Graniteman posted:Loving my new stackshot. I'm hoping to assemble a shooting stage over the holidays this month. Just some wood and rails bolted together so I don't have to keep putting things together and breaking them down every time I want to shoot. Yes....YES! I need to dust my stackshot off and get shooting again.
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Dec 11, 2013 10:23
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Graniteman posted:Loving my new stackshot. I'm hoping to assemble a shooting stage over the holidays this month. Just some wood and rails bolted together so I don't have to keep putting things together and breaking them down every time I want to shoot. PREYING MANTITS posted:
I would love to see what kind of lighting setup you guys used for these, they are stunning shots! spongepuppy posted:I need to dust my stackshot off and get shooting again.
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Dec 11, 2013 14:52
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InternetJunky posted:I would love to see what kind of lighting setup you guys used for these, they are stunning shots! Well since I'm a huge fan of your nature photography and you asked with flattery, I figure I'll reveal my secret. Prepare yourself for probably the greatest macro lighting setup of all time. I mean it, contain your envy....  In this dramatic recreation of the set on my desk, I substituted the ant with some humping bears so as to assist in locating where the subject was placed. I kept it covered with a glass until it settled down enough that I could take the glass off, pop off a few shots and then cover it again before it wandered off. I have the flash set on a cheap wireless trigger and the flash itself is a "well loved" Yongnuo YN462 manual flash with the battery compartment door held shut via one high quality Paul C. Buff brand rubber band. The diffuser is a limited edition foil lined plastic Blue Bonnet brand butter container with a hole cut out for the YN462 head and only the best brand of paper towels are taped to the opening so as to spread the light effectively. Then I simply shot from the lowest angle possible to get the nice reflection, cleaned it up a little bit in Photoshop since apparently my glass desk is scraped to hell and it was done! If santa decides to deliver my list this year, I'm going to do a setup like this: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/compound-eye/2013/01/02/recipe-for-a-photograph-1-reflected-ant-on-black/ (currently down as of posting, but should be back up before long) since I like the angle better on his and I'd like to photograph a few other creatures in the same visual style so anything that could discourage a prison break is highly desired.
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Dec 12, 2013 02:24
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