[photolady95]

Sorry, I don't get it? what are you showing here? I see no bug.


I am thinking of selling my only macro lens, the Tamron Adaptall 2 SP 90mm f2.8 1:1 with P/KA, and stay with my Raynoxes, I have both now, the DCR-150 and the DCR-250.

[WPRESTO]

Sorry, I don't get it? what are you showing here? I see no bug. .

It's a fluorite crystal - or a small part of one, no bug(s).

[jcdoss]

Was I supposed to include a bug in there, or was that humor?

[photolady95]

No, not mandatory a bug needed I just couldn't make out what you were trying to show us. My fault entirely. Need new glasses. Sorry!! Walt answered me. All's good now.

[Doundounba]

Pentax-M 135mm F/3.5 plus Raynox MSN-202. Man, that is one powerful diopter! The frame here is about 6.5mm wide. Pretty deep focus stack... (X-posted to K-3 Sample Shots.)

[photolady95]

Pascal, do ever do anything other than stacks? Lovely snowflake though.

[WPRESTO]

Pentax-M 135mm F/3.5 plus Raynox MSN-202. Man, that is one powerful diopter! The frame here is about 6.5mm wide. Pretty deep focus stack... (X-posted to K-3 Sample Shots.)

Exceptional macro image.

[Doundounba]

Pascal, do ever do anything other than stacks? Lovely snowflake though.

Hehe.

In my defense, most of the subjects I shoot benefit from the DoF increase that stacking brings. I'm walking around with the camera on Continuous High, and, when I fire a shot, most of the time I might as well fire a volley. Last summer for example, I tried to get more 3/4 shots, as opposed either straight on views or the sideways shots that probably constitute at least 65% of all Odonata shots. With a straight on view, it's possible to get both eyes in the plane of focus of a single frame, but not with a 3/4 view...

BTW, I usually end up with both single frames and stackable bursts of a given subject, but that often means it's one of the stacks that gets published. (Exceptions are very active subjects, where it's impossible to get a stack.)

Also, I started shooting snowflakes as a way to practice and perfect my handheld focus stacking technique. Admittedly, flakes are harder to spook than insects, but that's why I don't use rails or have a set-up with a glass plate and the camera perfectly lined up with the plate for my snowflake shots - I want to use the same kind of rig & technique I would use for a live subject.

Anyway, here's proof from last summer that I don't only shoot stacks. And it's a Raynox shot that (I believe) hasn't been published to this thread previously, though it's been elsewhere on PF.

Exceptional macro image.

Thank you!

[Doundounba]

Following up on myself with another snowflake... (X-posted to K-3 Sample Shots.)

[Doundounba]

Bumping this thread again with the latest snowflake. Again, D-FA 100mm WR, HD DA 1.4X and Raynox DCR-250. 26 frames. (X-posted to K-3 Sample Shots.)

[photolady95]

Why are your snowflakes white instead of crystal clear like some I've seen? Nice capture though. I just was curious about the color.

[Doundounba]

Why are your snowflakes white instead of crystal clear like some I've seen? Nice capture though. I just was curious about the color.

Flakes, because they are ice, are mostly transparent. In shots where the flake is perfectly flat to the camera and backlit, it will seem mostly transparent, with shiny edges.

But, just like a glass pane, at some angles they will reflect a ton of light. So, depending on the position of the flash and the camera with respect to the flake, you can get a snowflake to "light up". I call the angle where the flake most lights up the "Komarechka angle", after one of the masters of snowflake photos, Don Komarechka, whose amazing shots pretty much always leverage this fact.

You'll notice that when the flake is lit up that way, it's usually not parallel to the plane of the camera's sensor. This makes it even more essential to focus stack for this type of shot.

The image I have which best illustrates how the look of snowflakes in photos will vary based on the angle that it's lit and viewed from is the following, where I happened to successfully shoot stacks the same flake from three different angles in quick succession. Actually, the three angles are pretty close, but you can see how the look of the snowflake varies significantly from one to the other:




Note that this snowflake is also peculiar because there appears to be a "crink" in it, meaning that it's not all in the same plane, which is very unusual. Note also that these shots weren't taken with a Raynox, so they are a bit OT for the thread... Sorry.

[photolady95]

Thanks for the explanation, Pascal. Still very good shots. I thought about trying this when I lived in Minnesota but had not the place to keep them cold enough so they wouldn't melt on me. And I sure wasn't going to stand out in the cold cold weather and try it.

[Thagomizer]

(Cross posted from Macro by any means necessary club). A member on photomacrography.net posted about this item on sale at Surplus Shed: REDROCK MICRO 72MM 5X MACRO MTD ACHROMAT, 187MM FL. . Yet more information here. I decided to order one as it looks like a less expensive possible alternative to the Raynox macro adapters. At 187mm focal length, it falls between the Raynox 150 (208mm) and the Raynox 250 (125mm), so it should give an intermediate magnification, but a bit closer to the 150. I'm figuring on using it with my 55-300 as a handy macro add-on for when I don't want to carry an actual macro lens with me.

P.S. I have no connection with or interest in Surplus Shed.

[schnitzer79]

DA 55-300WR with Raynox DCR-150