Through One Eye » macro

A tiny new world, and freedom

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:40:17 +0000

macro photos and flower photos with extension tubes offer, in this shot at least, something akin to life without my spectacles. I’ve been feeling a little grumpy recently, and realized that I’d confined my views of photography to proper rules. After spending yesterday viewing a tiny vine and even tinier blossoms with varying degrees of sharpness and aperture openings, from ultra blurred, as in the photo (left), to an aperture of f/67—what the remarkable macro lens is capable of—I felt freer. What or how did I confine my efforts to mountains or “representing Alaska”?
And why?
Please ignore the underlined links. I’m playing with a new site, which requires a specific code.

Nude poppy

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:17:57 +0000

Nude poppy innards without petals. Untouched from RAW. Playing with extensions tubes is a hoot! Now I’ve had to order a micro rail from Adorama.com—but look at all the money VISA saved me by not letting someone fly to Spain on my card! (Not counting the other charges on PayPal the anonymous bloke charged.)

Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens, 105mm, f/3.5 and 1/6sec, -0.3ev, IS0 100, manual exposure, manual focus. Manfrotto tripod, SB-800 flash slaved with attached Honl grid from left. Converted from RAW/NEF (14 bit) tojpeg using Nikon’s Capture NX 2.2.4. Using 36mmm extension tube.

Testing new extension tubes

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:42:17 +0000

Poppy stamens and fluff closeup. Three brand new (one hour old!) Kenko extension tubes on the macro lens. UPS delivered the set from Adorama.com at 8 p.m. Good fun during a (lovely) rainy week. Rain feels good for the soul and dry mountains; tough on camera parts. The link has a mini-video about how the tubes work.

This closeup used:
Nikon D300 and Nikkor 105mm macro lens, 105mm, at f/22 and 5 sec, -0.3ev, IS0 200. manual exposure. Manfrotto tripod, softbox lighting. Converted from RAW/NEF (14 bit) to jpeg using Capture NX 2.2.4. Just a bit of de-saturation, since the poppy seemed too orange–at least to me.

The drenched poppies seemed bent and flattened; I felt only small qualms about plucking them. This is a very shallow (f/1.4) shot using a softbox to light them.

Moss macro 1:1 closeup

admin — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:58:34 +0000

Growing indoors until spring

admin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Sunshine through the petals

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:00:34 +0000

Oil and water don’t mix ~ happy anniversary anyhow

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:10:24 +0000

Chair through tiny antique mirror

admin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:38:53 +0000