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GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


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seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know

RustedChrome posted:

That's the actual texture/reflection of the coin in direct sunlight. I think the sky, window and some bright red curtains reflecting off of all the tiny scratches on the surface are giving that look.

It's just the reflection of the sun. It's a known phenomenon (though I'm forgetting its name), also very prone to happen with chitinous subjects such as flies.




You can see it there, on the body.


I'm tempted to say it's just iridescence, not sure though.

evil_bunnY
Apr 2, 2003

Dispersion?

evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Apr 29, 2010

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<
There's some outrageous quality on the previous page, kudos to all.

SpunkyRedKnight
Oct 12, 2000
A few recent shots:





seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know
Nice details overall, but you should diffuse the twin to kill the hotspots and make the light more even :)

Raikiri
Nov 3, 2008

a foolish pianist
May 6, 2007

(bi)cyclic mutation

An actual jumping spider on a drainpipe:

SpunkyRedKnight
Oct 12, 2000

seravid posted:

Nice details overall, but you should diffuse the twin to kill the hotspots and make the light more even :)

I've got the standard sto-fen ones on there, though they don't seem to make a ton of difference. That was also the first time I had taken some macro shots in a while and for some reason forgot about FEC.

Couple more:


axolotl farmer
May 17, 2007

Now I'm going to sing the Perry Mason theme

SpunkyRedKnight posted:


Couple more:



That's a ladybug larva.

Moist von Lipwig
Oct 28, 2006

by FactsAreUseless
Tortured By Flan

RustedChrome posted:

That's the actual texture/reflection of the coin in direct sunlight. I think the sky, window and some bright red curtains reflecting off of all the tiny scratches on the surface are giving that look.

That is downright psychedelic!

Is there any good macro option for Pentax? I have a Tamron 70-300mm but I'd like something past 1:2.

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know

Raikiri posted:



What's going on here, is it leaning towards the camera? Great background, though.


a foolish pianist posted:

An actual jumping spider on a drainpipe:



You got some spooky light there, but it seems you missed the focus on the eyes.

SpunkyRedKnight posted:



I'm not usually a fan of black backgrounds, but I like this one.


Moist von Lipwig posted:

Is there any good macro option for Pentax? I have a Tamron 70-300mm but I'd like something past 1:2.

Besides the usual Tamron and Sigma lenses, you also have the Pentax 100/2.8 Macro. Don't know how easy/hard it is to find, though, Pentax stuff isn't my specialty.

You can also play with inverted lenses, extension tubes, close-ups, etc... to get 1:1 or more.

Raikiri
Nov 3, 2008

seravid posted:

What's going on here, is it leaning towards the camera? Great background, though.


Very slightly, yeah. They tend to wave side to side a little. That's a full frame @ 1:1, so the DoF was tiny.

Musket
Mar 19, 2008
Xpost from fEE thread:

My wife is currently obsessed with Macro images she sees on the web. Im wondering what a good entry level but semi future proof combo for a D300 we should look into getting her.

As for budget, we really don't have one, so toss out cheap or expensive options.

She wants to shoot mainly flowers, food, odd shapes and designs, and patterns.

torgeaux
Dec 31, 2004
I serve...

Musket posted:

Xpost from fEE thread:

My wife is currently obsessed with Macro images she sees on the web. Im wondering what a good entry level but semi future proof combo for a D300 we should look into getting her.

As for budget, we really don't have one, so toss out cheap or expensive options.

She wants to shoot mainly flowers, food, odd shapes and designs, and patterns.

The things you've named aren't macro shots. Not being pedantic, it's a significant difference. If she wants to shoot small things (bugs, tiny pistils on flowers, that sort of thing) it's a different lens choice perhaps than if she wants to shoot smallish things like full flowers, food, etc...

A good, clear, but not macro prime lens will be better for what you described, like a good 50mm f/1.4 (Nikon or Sigma).

For actual macro, Nikon makes a 50mm and a 105mm. The longer focal length gives you more working distance, that is, distance from the tip of your lens to the object in focus. I don't know about their quality.

Tamron has a really nice, 90mm Macro lens that would be cheaper than the Nikon 105.


edit: If she gets a good 50mm f/1.4, then decides she wants closer to "true" macro, she can buy extension tubes for that.

evil_bunnY
Apr 2, 2003

Sig 30, Tamron 90 macro. And a couple of flashes.

Dread Head
Aug 1, 2005

0-#01
I am going to say have a look at the nikon 60mm, this is a macro lens but I find it much better suited for "close up" photography due to the short working distance. The quality is very good and is not too expensive, I have the older 60mm AF-D and use it on a D300 and I am happy with it, not sure what the new 60mm AF-S one is like but I assume it is just as good if not better.

Studebaker Hawk
May 22, 2004

Dead baby bird claw


Mite

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know

Studebaker Hawk posted:

Dead baby bird claw
Yikes...



For content :

Gunshow Poophole
Sep 14, 2008

OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069




Clapping Larry
Studebaker, the mite on the flower pistil is INSANELY close what's your setup like? I'm sure you get this question a billion times but I'm lazy :)

Studebaker Hawk
May 22, 2004

Stew Man Chew posted:

Studebaker, the mite on the flower pistil is INSANELY close what's your setup like? I'm sure you get this question a billion times but I'm lazy :)

I just came into possession of an MP-E65! Cheapo chinese bracket/ball head with a 430EX, opteka collapsable diffuser.

Really fun lens, difficult to use but I am learning :)

Gunshow Poophole
Sep 14, 2008

OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069




Clapping Larry

Studebaker Hawk posted:

I just came into possession of an MP-E65! Cheapo chinese bracket/ball head with a 430EX, opteka collapsable diffuser.

Really fun lens, difficult to use but I am learning :)

ohhhh you bastard (jealous as hell)

I keep trying to get out and find some bugs in the neighborhood, but the weekends I'm not traveling, it's storming here. Wind doesn't play well with millimeter depths of field :(

sanka
Aug 23, 2008


More Info

Phidippus audax, my favorite species. I found two of them today, this one, and another that was jet black all over but had red abdomen markings.

sanka
Aug 23, 2008

Some from my garden:


More Info


More Info


More Info


More Info

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know
This thread really needs more action.

PREYING MANTITS
Mar 13, 2003

and that's how you get ants.
Haha, nice action! bow-chicka-wow.

I'm jealous of everyone who has an MPE65. I don't have a great lighting setup though so I don't think I could put it to good use if I did have one!

This carpenter bee botfly was laying on a floor at work. It had been caught in a spider web, I think, due to all the webbing around it and it was absolutely exhausted. I ended up grabbing it and brought it home for some photos and rehabilitation haha. It's sucking on some sugar water at the moment while watching the basketball game. Tough life. I'll let it go in the morning provided it's active enough.


PREYING MANTITS fucked around with this message at 03:55 on May 24, 2010

dakana
Aug 28, 2006
So I packed up my Salvador Dali print of two blindfolded dental hygienists trying to make a circle on an Etch-a-Sketch and headed for California.
I'm going to call this macro since I stuck the 24-70 @ 70mm and focused it to as close as it would go (it says macro in the focusing window!!), and used live view to get as close to this dude as the lens would focus (I should note I was on my hands and knees holding the camera, lens, and flash straight out with one hand, about 3 inches over my pond. for a toad.

I should have stopped down some more, but this was f/3.2 at 1/125th and ISO800. I was burst-firing while slowly moving the camera closer/farther away to get the right focus since my hand was so unstable.

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know
The MP-E is pretty overrated. It's the most practical solution for high magnification, sure, but it suffers from diffraction just as much as the other lenses out there, so it's not like it's a magical thing powered by the love of unicorns.

That said, if I was a Canon user I'd still have one, but I'm not and I managed 4:1 just fine with a regular 100mm macro lens, extension tubes and a quality close-up filter. It's not as convenient, but it cost me half the MP-E's price for comparable image quality... plus, a regular macro lens can (auto)focus at infinity (though they're usually not great there).



@ diarrhea for girls : no need to buy a twin flash to achieve great lighting. A single cobra can do the trick... It's all in the diffuser.

@ dakana : that's not macro :colbert: but yeah, you should have stopped more.



C'mon, let's get the ball rolling. Here's a 9 picture (handheld) focus stack :

seravid fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 23, 2010

dakana
Aug 28, 2006
So I packed up my Salvador Dali print of two blindfolded dental hygienists trying to make a circle on an Etch-a-Sketch and headed for California.

seravid posted:

@ dakana : that's not macro :colbert: but yeah, you should have stopped more.

By my calculation, it's ~1:3.
Speaking of my calculation, I've googled around a LOT to try and find an easy way to calculate the macro reproduction ratio of a lens, but haven't found a good one, so I tried to do it myself based on what I understand the ratio to represent.

Is this accurate?

First, I took a picture of a ruler running horizontally across the frame at the minimum focus distance of the lens at 70mm.
Then, I measured how many pixels across 1 inch on the ruler was.
I got 1063 pixels; the whole frame is 3888 pixels, so that means that 1 inch covers 27.34% of the sensor.
According to Canon, the sensor in the 1D Mark III is 28.1mm wide, and 27.34% of 28.1mm is 7.68mm.
Which comes out to 1:3.02.

The margin of error would come from
1. The sensor width not mapping directly to the image width (that is, of the "box" that is the sensor, the image may come from "inside" this box, meaning that the actual image's pixels do not "run" to the edge of the sensor)
2. The ruler's face not being exactly perpendicular to the sensor and the edge not being parallel with the sensor.

Slo-Tek
Jun 8, 2001

WINDOWS 98 BEAT HIS FRIEND WITH A SHOVEL

seravid posted:

C'mon, let's get the ball rolling. Here's a 9 picture (handheld) focus stack :



Now that is very interesting, though the in-focus/out-of-focus stripes down the leaf are a little odd.

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know

dakana posted:

By my calculation, it's ~1:3.
Speaking of my calculation, I've googled around a LOT to try and find an easy way to calculate the macro reproduction ratio of a lens, but haven't found a good one, so I tried to do it myself based on what I understand the ratio to represent.

Is this accurate?

First, I took a picture of a ruler running horizontally across the frame at the minimum focus distance of the lens at 70mm.
Then, I measured how many pixels across 1 inch on the ruler was.
I got 1063 pixels; the whole frame is 3888 pixels, so that means that 1 inch covers 27.34% of the sensor.
According to Canon, the sensor in the 1D Mark III is 28.1mm wide, and 27.34% of 28.1mm is 7.68mm.
Which comes out to 1:3.02.

The margin of error would come from
1. The sensor width not mapping directly to the image width (that is, of the "box" that is the sensor, the image may come from "inside" this box, meaning that the actual image's pixels do not "run" to the edge of the sensor)
2. The ruler's face not being exactly perpendicular to the sensor and the edge not being parallel with the sensor.

Yeah, that's the quick and dirty way to see your current magnification. The usual method doesn't include counting pixels, though, just aligning the ruler with the frame and see how many millimeters fit, then it's just a matter of comparing it to the sensor's length. More than the sensor, you're below 1:1. Less, you're above it.



Slo-Tek posted:

Now that is very interesting, though the in-focus/out-of-focus stripes down the leaf are a little odd.

You're right. After a couple of hours working on a picture, you stop noticing this kind of stuff... I just fixed it, thanks.

To make it up, here's the "making of" :

PREYING MANTITS
Mar 13, 2003

and that's how you get ants.

seravid posted:

To make it up, here's the "making of" :



This is awesome! Thanks for showing that. Your results are spectacular. I'm really impressed that it was handheld. Did you just shoot a burst while moving slightly closer? I've tried to do that a couple of times but generally the subject will move and ruin it.

seravid
Apr 21, 2010

Let me tell you of the world I used to know
Two or three shots aren't difficult to manage and are usually enough to get a decent stack. In this case, though, the weather was really cold so this little guy proved very cooperative, enough for me to use a wider aperture (to get better sharpness) and balance the resulting loss of dof with more shots. Got 25 pictures, but only needed 9 to cover the whole subject.


Regarding bursts, my poor old flash is so heavily diffused that, in certain situations (like this one with the bee), it only allows me 0,1fps :v:

Raikiri
Nov 3, 2008

diarrhea for girls posted:

Haha, nice action! bow-chicka-wow.

I'm jealous of everyone who has an MPE65. I don't have a great lighting setup though so I don't think I could put it to good use if I did have one!

This carpenter bee was laying on a floor at work. It had been caught in a spider web, I think, due to all the webbing around it and it was absolutely exhausted. I ended up grabbing it and brought it home for some photos and rehabilitation haha. It's sucking on some sugar water at the moment while watching the basketball game. Tough life. I'll let it go in the morning provided it's active enough.




That carpenter bee is a bot fly of some kind... please Google it if you've not heard of them :)

PREYING MANTITS
Mar 13, 2003

and that's how you get ants.

Raikiri posted:

That carpenter bee is a bot fly of some kind... please Google it if you've not heard of them :)

Oh dear god. Haha.

I have indeed heard of them but I never knew they looked like that. Now I'm kind of glad it died sometime overnight! Those are creepy things, haha. Thanks for the proper id. :)

DevNull
Apr 4, 2007

And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky
A human being that was given to fly

I got a macro lens just in time for Hawaii. I didn't get to use it too much, but I got a few neat pictures out of it.



RustedChrome
Jun 10, 2007

"do not hold the camera obliquely, or the world will seem to be on an inclined plane."
I got a set of extension tube for the Micro 4/3 format and tried them out today.
Olympus EP-1 + M.U.K. Extension Tubes + Leica M adapter + Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.4 lens.

Chive flower at f/1.4: (ridiculously thin dof but I like the colors)


The same a f/11:

u got mares in yr house
Feb 23, 2001

Any idea what kind of magnification you're getting with that setup? I think I would kill for that kind of DOF at f/11.

RustedChrome
Jun 10, 2007

"do not hold the camera obliquely, or the world will seem to be on an inclined plane."

MrFrosty posted:

Any idea what kind of magnification you're getting with that setup? I think I would kill for that kind of DOF at f/11.

I'll have to test it out on a ruler I guess. The tubes had no paperwork so I have no idea what it's doing. FYI, that flower head is about the size of a US nickel.

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jsmith114
Mar 31, 2005

I am thinking of picking up the dcr-250 to play around a bit as I have little to no experience with macro shooting. At the moment I have a 50/1.8, 28/2.8 and a 28-135. How would the dcr-250 work on the 28? Would it be worth getting a step down ring so that I can put it on the zoom? As I am just interested in getting my feet wet would I be better off with the 150 then the 250?

edit - this is all on a 1.6x crop sensor camera

jsmith114 fucked around with this message at 20:34 on May 29, 2010

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