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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
09-04-2015, 09:03 AM
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Cool. An interesting photo that does not look over done in terms of post production like many of the others do. Plus it's a good match for the theme. Well done!
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
09-04-2015, 08:57 AM
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I was working the wheat harvest in the very flat Western Australia. At the end of the season we went to the pub and celebrated. On the way home this storm was booming in the distance. So after I dropped off the drunks I grabbed my gear and drove the land cruiser to a good spot. I used the hood of the truck as my tripod.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
08-13-2015, 01:31 PM
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I copied much of hangman43's set up that he detailed in the first post in this thread.
I bought the same 7 inch magic friction arm, and the same L-grip bracket. However I bought a slightly different hot shoe flash trigger only so that all my items would come from one source (amazon), and I used a cheaper flash/diffuser combo. I opted for the Altura speedlite flash kit combo. I should mention that the first one I received didn't work so I had amazon send me a new one. It arrived in two days and works beautifully.
I'm shooting with a reversed Vvitar 28MM F2.8 lens on a set of old school extension tubes both of which I found on Ebay for $50 each, though it took me several days of searching to get the ones I wanted.
Sometimes I find that shooting with the stopped down aperture is nearly impossible without an additional focusing light, so when I'm in the field looking for critters I've been carrying a small but bright LED flashlight that I have learned how to hold in my right hand when setting up the shot. Eventually I may get a light (as in not heavy) LED lamp that I can clamp or tape onto the L-grip bracket for ease of use. I've found that the flash overpowers the LED to such a degree that I don't have to fumble around with turning it off or removing it from illuminating the subject when shooting. If anything, having the flash come from the left, and the LED slightly lighting up the lower right of the subject can sometimes work to my advantage.
After shooting this way in the field about three times now I'm already wishing that I went ahead and purchased the larger soft box diffuser. The diffuser that comes in the Altura kit is pretty good but at such close distances it's still not quite soft enough and sometimes the reflection of the Altura diffuser is very obvious in the eyes of subjects or on the backs of metallic insects.
I've really enjoyed swinging the 7 inch magic friction arm around to try different lighting options. The option of lighting a subject completely from the side is just great and really brings out details. One thing I've noticed, however, is that the hot shoe style mount on the magic friction arm clamps down with a wheel that releases far too easily. At first I was very worried about the arm and everything attached to it coming off and falling to the ground. I still worry about it a bit, especially when working over hard ground or water, and find myself constantly tightening it. If they made the wheel a bit wider and more grippy I thick it would be easier to hand tighten properly. In the end though I'm still pretty pleased with the 7 inch magic grip arm's application to macro photography and I have simply become used to tightening it as a habit.
Here are a few images I've taken in the last few days since I completed the setup. The great part about the jumping spider is that it was on top of a leaf and was shielded by another leaf above giving me a second (very green) layer of diffusion for my flash. I adjusted the magic grip arm so that the flash was side on and slightly overhead of the little guy or gal.
At my best guess, the spider is a Hentzia mitrata and was quite cooperative.
Each of these spider images is a photostack of three or four images done in Photoshop. I love the detail in the eyes here - such a cool looking little creature! I also really enjoy the partially see-through limbs.
This flower is my first attempt at a photostack. It was 29 images and took a couple hours to touch up. It's not spectacular but it was a great learning process. I flowed the instructions of this snowflake photographer except I didn't do it by hand. The spier was so cooperative I got out the tripod and loosened up the mount plate just enough to slide the camera forward and backward to get the right elements in focus for each shot. Even then it was tough to deal with such a shallow depth of field. Every time the little guy/gal moved I had to start over again. I took a ton of images.
This is a single shot of a moth I included just because I love the detail in its 'fur'. One thing I've noticed is how difficult it is to get in any background light without turning the ISO way up or opening up the aperture or both. This moth was on a flower in full daylight with a fairly light background but before I could adjust my settings to try and get some background light in there it grew weary of my nosiness and flew away.
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
08-06-2015, 07:23 AM
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-28-2015, 06:54 PM
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Oh sorry, I read that sentence far too quickly. I've just come across that idea via this forum. I'm certainly intrigued. I had actually just googled how to calculate the magnification of arrangements like that and came across this article which claims that lens stacking can actually yield higher quality images because lens stacking doesn't produce soft edges whereas apparently a single reversed lens can. Definitely something I'll have to try out!
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-28-2015, 08:43 AM
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Thanks Baro-nite.
I haven't gotten into lens stacking yet but I plan on giving it a go once I have some good insect photos to try it out on. I'll be giving it a go in photoshop and probably buying Zerene Stacker when I get the money for it. It's supposed to be pretty awesome for this purpose.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-27-2015, 08:37 PM
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Thanks team! After serious scouring of the internet, I've gone ahead and purchased some metal tubes on Ebay for $50 with the option to return them. I was wary at first but after asking a few questions from the seller I think it'll be alright. I am only using them to reverse mount a 28mm lens so they don't need to be perfect. If I do get a macro lens it will be the fully manual
You Tube
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uSpE_JE7Uyo?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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from the hobbyist lens makers at Laowa. So hopefully I won't be needing any automatic tubes any time soon. If I do though I think it'll be a waiting game because after looking I've discovered the auto ones for k mount are pretty tough to find unless you want to pay top dollar from Japan.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-27-2015, 08:21 PM
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If I were in the market for a K50 right now I'd consider buying from this person in Norfolk Virginia who has a whole heap of lenses and accessories for sale alongside a K30 (arguably only slightly different from the K50) for a total of $585. I don't have the money so I haven't researched the lenses, but if I did have the money and I found that they're decent, I might buy the whole lot. It looks like a pretty good deal.
Pentax K-30 camera, lenses, and accessories |
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-25-2015, 11:55 PM
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Hey team macro, I'm having trouble finding k mount extension tubes in North America for a decent price. I just had to return the ones I bought from Amazon because the k mount on the tubes was far too tight and wouldn't properly mount onto my camera. I couldn't even get it to turn more than a centimeter, and when I did that it took me twenty minutes to pry them back off my camera. I almost resorted to using channel locks. Upon closer inspection it appears that almost all of the k-mount tubes sold on Ebay, Adorama, Amazon, B&H, KEH, etc are all the exact same tubes. These tubes are listed under different manufacturers for wildly different prices but if you look closely you'll notice that they are all the same set of tubes. They all have 5 parts, poor reviews (if any), are numbered 1,2,3 (or by their mm in the case of fotodiox) and have a little silver pin to release the lens.
Upon reading the reviews it seems that some people have gotten lucky and their tubes didn't try to forever marry to their camera or to each other, but just as many others have had serious issues with these poorly machined, cheap tubes. On Ebay I've found several decent vintage tube sets in Europe and Japan, and even some for a decent price! But that price is negated after shipping. So what's your experience? Is it just a fact that I'll have to pay over $100 for 60 mm worth of hollow k mounted metal tubing? For those of you who use tubes, where did you get yours?
Your help is much appreciated.
-Mike in North Carolina.
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