[JohnR]

Today being the last day of hols before work , I had to go out and do some serious shooting! So I took my 200mm micro-nikkor lens and an F3 with slide film in it. Things I did/learnt...

• Tripods are OK. You just have to slow down. I took just half a roll in 3+ hours. Hey, maybe I will turn into a large format guy yet
• I used mirror lockup most of the time. Despite that, I had forgotten my cable release so not sure there was much point. Most ambitious shot was one second. We'll see how it turns out.
• I kept forgetting to adjust exposure based on magnification, but OTOH I'm not sure there's much point since the F3 only meters in full stops. A proper light meter is needed I expect, to do this right.
  

So. I'm starting to quite like the 200mm length for macro. Even with that though, it's difficult to get high magnification of things at ground level (when using the tripod, which is pretty much mandatory). And I'm getting better (I think) at creating macro shots with some interest in the composition. We will see! (When I get the film developed...) In the meantime, here are some shots from my first outing with the lens, shot on digital:

Lantana montevidensis


Spinifex sericeus


Dianella caerulea

[nathanm]

Half a roll in three hours?  Pshaw!  That's lightning quick!   I must admit I am somewhat jealous of your balmy NZ weather.  The greenest thing I've seen lately was some moss on a log underneath some snow!

Here's an eye-gouger from a few months back:

[WGH]

Tomatoes start setting fruit in March around here, this shot is from a couple of years ago with my trusty Canon G1 and some Sunpak stackable closeup lenses.

[JohnR]

Hm, those closeup lenses seem to work really well... do they actually let you get closer or do they magnify the image you see at all distances? (No idea how they work...)

nathanm, I'm dying to get a tilt-shift macro lens, Nikon make one at 85mm. Poor substitute for a view camera? Maybe But with such a shallow DOF some tilt would really be quite useful - maybe more than for any other application, I'm thinking now. BTW I see that you can get specialized macro lenses for LF.

[BradJudy]

Hm, those closeup lenses seem to work really well... do they actually let you get closer or do they magnify the image you see at all distances? (No idea how they work...)

They are for getting really close to your subject, you may even find yourself bumping into it.   

I have a basic 35mm setup with a Canon AT-1 and a 90mm 2.8 macro lens, which I have enjoyed playing with.  I don't shoot much film anymore though.

[nathanm]

This is one of the few closeup shots I've done on 4x5.

I think if I wanted to do more overall sharp closeups I'd use 35mm but the view camera is great for blurring effects.  You need a lot of bellows to get in close, though.  More than my camera has.

If you have the patience to feed it lots of carefully-shot images and don't mind waiting for your compter to crunch away I'd recommend Helicon Focus software for getting "unnaturally" sharp macros.  I've found that with digital cameras it is tough to make small focus changes, they're really touchy in that regard.  But that's the key to making it work, tons of incrementally focused shots.

[JohnR]

If you have the patience to feed it lots of carefully-shot images and don't mind waiting for your compter to crunch away I'd recommend Helicon Focus software for getting "unnaturally" sharp macros.

Hey, that looks pretty cool. I'll try taking some digital macros and give it a shot. Did you use it for that situation you had with the model train?

[JohnR]

Well I finished the roll last weekend....!

[nathanm]

Hey, that looks pretty cool. I'll try taking some digital macros and give it a shot. Did you use it for that situation you had with the model train?

Helicon Focus has been pretty neglected around here actually.  I think what they are doing is manually blending two or three shots in Photoshop, or perhaps just living with some softness. I'm just glad I don't have to do it cause if I did I would start shooting with the old camera!  Trying to fix up blurry shots is a real bummer.  That said, there are some incredible microscope-style shots of insects out there done with Helicon that are impressive.  But as a product photography tool it seems too cumbersome and time consuming.  We have to post dozens and dozens of new shots every day and I suspect if we were stitching each one with HF we'd get way behind.  Hmmm.

I even brought in my 4x5 to see what it could do, but it wasn't too much better.  That is, when an inexperienced person like myself is doing it.  I suspect if I had the fancy monorail with self-arresting micrometers and whatnot and knew exactly what schiempflug magic to dial in I could get it sharp, but my fairly quick 'n dirty setup with a wooden field camera only did marginally better than the digital.

[some young guy]

here's a couple... not too close, but macro none the less.

[rajacat]