[margriet]

Hello,

This picture is part of some experimenting with old m42 bellows. My first day using bellows and first time using s-m-c takumar 50/1.4. I kind of like the super soft appearance of this particular picture which shows a 6 mm Ø rosette of a leaf moss plant. I used a diy flash diffuser on the internal flash of the k10d. When I used smaller aperture I was able to get non soft super sharp pictures with larger DOF. Though as said; in this picture I kind of liked the unintended softness... Do you?
Can anybody explain to me what actually causes this softness when using large aperture on fully extended bellows? I know it´s not movement because I used beanbag and even though it´s really soft there is a narrow but sharp DOF.
Any critique or advice is appreciated,
regards, Margriet

Attached Images

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

[Philoslothical]

Sure, with a large aperture on significant extension, your depth of field is going to be measured in fractions of a millimeter. A super thin slice will be in focus (and you'll be lucky if a good portion of your subject falls within it), but the rest will be softened like the result you got.

It is a nice shot, with a soft, dreamy quality to it.

[riff]

I like it, as Philo said, ``a nice shot, with a soft, dreamy quality to it``.

FWIW I find Live view very useful for macro work.

[margriet]

Thanks for the compliments! My k10d as far as I know doesn´t offer "live view"... I can imagine it can help, as a angle viewfinder would help. I still have to lay down in mud very often .

But, this dreamy effect is as I now understand result of "normal" shallow depth of field? I once was told about when using the outer f- numbers (aka largest or smallest aperture) of any lens the quality of the picture sharpness would suffer and show up as a sort of haze and thought I might be dealing with this.

Thanks for taking the effort of looking and commenting,
regards,
margriet

[Nass]

Not sure if I'm wild about the soft dreamy effect to be honest, but maybe that's because I'm a very fussy ultramacro guy. You might want to consider stacking as an approach; also the old taks are ok but the 50 1.2 I used reversed for macro produced very soft results for me. A good affordable old Pentax lens to use for macro is the m50 f/4 1:2.

[margriet]

I get your fussy take on this... though you probably already understood this is more of a creative photo than a detailed picture of a moss.

I have some 1:1 macro lenses... and stacking is only an option for me if I can get some pictures outside from living subjects that are stackable.
Without having to carry around half of a studio filled with flashes and other stuff on my field days .. Though I also think it´s awsome to have a picture of a micro moth which shows the scales or compound eyes... I don´t very much like the "dead" effect of the pictures in the link you posted. It is a whole different ball game...
But, the mosses outside are probably as good as any subjects that don´t run or fly away when taking heaps of shots for trying stacking...

regards, margriet

[Nass]

Early in the morning when they're asleep is the best time to get stuff outside when they don't move. Or use a reverse lens and follow them about during the day, that's what I do. I actually don't much like dead eyes either but for me the stuff I'm doing is a practice run for when I can get them to pose for me live in studio conditions. Difficult, but I expect to be doing that in a couple of months or so.

[margriet]

I have uploaded a picture using the same lens and bellows but smaller aperture and bigger flash. It might suit the extreme macro lovers better. I didn´t think about compo or shade, just more sharpness and less dreamy



I still haven´t decided which of my lenses would be best for reverse lensing, but it is on my wish list to get reverse mounting ring or DIY something usable... later

[jac]

I like your soft, dreamy. It tells your story, what you want to say :-)

[MSL]

I like the photo's dreamy effect, although I wonder what it would have been like if the sharpest focus had coincided with the red region in the center rather than the leafy part slightly more forward of center. Just a thought, and a minor one at that.