[melander]

Im at home from work with a fewer and my fiance asked me if we could try to take some pictures of snowflakes this winter. Having the day to myself while she was as work I started experementing with my lenses to see what would give the best outcome.

With a Pentax M28/2.8 with slow apparture blades I got something like 2:1 magnification. Around the same as with my DA 35 macro ltd Reversed (all the scales are mm scales and not inch)



And thats not enough I tought.

So I got my voigtlander 180 / 4 from its shelf (pls dont hate me for this) and I taped (I know) the M28 reversed on to the Voigtlander.
Here is a picture of the abomination



And that gave me some nice closeups





So, now I only have to wait for it to start snowing. Living near the arctic circle you would think it would be here by now :/

[ghufran_ali]

The results look great . As long as it works, who s to argue . I once used a Soligor 300 5.5 and reversed a 50 1.7 held in place by the Soligor's hood , lol . The magnification i got , i know it was more than 1:1. But how can u know for sure how much mag u got ?

[baro-nite]

Congrats on achieving extreme macro! Check out Nass/Johan's new site for lots of helpful info:

Extreme Macro Photography

I look forward to seeing your results with snowflakes. They are an amazing subject for extreme macro, with astoundingly beautiful fine structure. You may find a lower-magnification rig is easier to work with and gives better results -- the problem with 8x using ordinary camera lenses is diffraction, which kills detail. I've found the Pentax-M 28/2.8 (version I) useful up to around 4x, but beyond that no additional detail is gained by increasing the magnification; it's lost to diffraction. That was with the lens alone, reversed on extension.

[Nass]

The results look great . As long as it works, who s to argue . I once used a Soligor 300 5.5 and reversed a 50 1.7 held in place by the Soligor's hood , lol . The magnification i got , i know it was more than 1:1. But how can u know for sure how much mag u got ?

Hello Ghufran - just take a pic of the mm scale on a ruler. Then divide the sensor width (in mm) by the mm you can see across the whole frame and that's your mag. Ie if you're using K5 and you can see 8mm across the frame, 23.7/8 is just under 3:1.There are other ways using maths but seriously, this is the easiest

[RonHendriks1966]

Wow, now the perfect object to find for this project.

[lytrytyr]

just take a pic of the mm scale on a ruler.

Looking at the tape measure in the third picture,
just over 3mm across the frame,
so around a 7 times magnification.