The Post Your Pictures Thread

[Cham]

I just found that two giants are on an horrible collision course



One is a real exoplanet, the other is a fictious system from Rassilon.

The action is taking place around Errai. The guys living on Earth 2 are doing desperate sacrifices ceremonies to their gods, before the final party !

[LordFerret]

Nice shot Dollan! Thanks for sharing.



ElChristou, nice shot also! Too bad you couldn't get the little guy to turn around. Actually, this particular type of photography is my specialty, photomacrography - insects and flora primarily. I will try to gather and scan and post some of my work to show you sometime this week.

[ElChristou]

ElChristou, nice shot also! Too bad you couldn't get the little guy to turn around.

Indeed macro is not easy to do, in this case one can see the focal distance is very very short...

[ANDREA]

Trashing some files tonight, I came over this one, taken some time ago, a micro hopper on the edge of a glass in my kitchen... Was the first time I meet one as small as this... (body ~2mm)

Chris, you started the micro-hopper war!
Following images have been scanned from Cibachrome 12"x20" prints, produced from dias, so the quality is much lower than the originals.
This is my mini-hopper on a red rose flower:



And, sorry but I cannot avoid showing this: it's my preferred dolphin, seen in S. Diego SeaWorld:



Hope you like it.
BTW, I've been professional photographer for a prestigious Italian Enciclopedy (the Treccani Enciclopedia) for about 8 years, and my preferred theme was macrophotography, for which I had a dedicated equipment.
Bye

Andrea

[Dollan]

My ability to take macros is extremely limited, currently, but I have managed to take a few: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maastrichi ... 024915448/

Obviously, they aren't nearly as close as most others. My wife, on the other hand, has been experimenting with it with her new camera: http://www.fanartreview.com/displaystory.jsp?id=90188

...John...

[ElChristou]

Chris, you started the micro-hopper war!

War you want, war you will have!

From micro hopper to MACRO hopper!

I love the eye of the guy... Would give lot to know what was it's thoughts at this instant...




(Sorry for the big images, but macro photo in a thumb...)

[ANDREA]

Chris, you started the micro-hopper war!

War you want, war you will have!
From micro hopper to MACRO hopper!

OK, shot to shot!
This is a small butterfly, that strangely flies with a hummingbird noise, whose scientific name is "Macroglossa Stellatarum":



Taken in summer during its "hovering" over a thistle flower, ready to sip nectar.
And here is another "sipper", a tini little butterfly taking its lunch, but after landing, this time:



Bye

Andrea

[ElChristou]

OK, shot to shot!

Humm, this first butterfly photo is quite impressive!

Well talking about lucky shot : those ones were really fast and after almost an hour shooting this hole, I took this one:




More ant: a MotherQueen of those leaf cutter ants we have over here. At a specific season, dozens of those are flying all over the garden... (BTW, it's a 4-5 cm monster!)

[ANDREA]

Well talking about lucky shot : those ones were really fast and after almost an hour shooting this hole, I took this one: More ant: a MotherQueen of those leaf cutter ants we have over here. At a specific season, dozens of those are flying all over the garden... (BTW, it's a 4-5 cm monster!)

Chris, those macros are very good, so you compelled me to use heavy artillery.
I decline any responsibility for eventual Celestians faintings, due to this horrible and monstrous sight:



This is a tiny, small spyder (6-8 mm across, including legs!), just woken in the morning, waiting for the Sun to dry the night's humidity on its hair and to energize its metabolism.
Look at the couple of eyes at the center.
This is an 8x macro, with hand-held camera and the annular Flasn firing at 3 frames/sec in order to be sure to have at least one good image, due to the focusing difficulty at this enlargment ratio.
This is the best of a full film roll!
Bye.

Andrea

[Dollan]

You guys... I'm in total awe.

[ElChristou]

...Chris, those macros are very good, so you compelled me to use heavy artillery.
I decline any responsibility for eventual Celestians faintings, due to this horrible and monstrous sight: ...

Arrghh you won!

This one IS incredible!!

[ANDREA]

...Chris, those macros are very good, so you compelled me to use heavy artillery.
I decline any responsibility for eventual Celestians faintings, due to this horrible and monstrous sight: ...

Arrghh you won!
This one IS incredible!!

Thank you Chris, but this is not a game, only a joke, no winners here, only friends who share their experiences.
As I told, I was a professional photographer, so I used the best instruments available for my work.
I always used 50 and 100 mm macro lenses, powerful macro annular flash, extension rings, focal duplicator, and cameras that could fire flash at 1/250th of a second, and so on.
As I always say on this matter, it's mostly a problem of instruments, with a bit of good eye to catch the right moment (and to find the subjects like this one, obviously! ).
But there is always the dark side of the medal: I remember the many many travels I made carrying all over the world at least 20 Kg of cameras and accessories, and to have seen the world only through the viewfinder, alas!
Well, we cannot have everything, isn't it?
By

Andrea

[ElChristou]

Thank you Chris, but this is not a game, only a joke, no winners here, only friends who share their experiences.

Of course mate!

As I told, I was a professional photographer, so I used the best instruments available for my work.
I always used 50 and 100 mm macro lenses, powerful macro annular flash, extension rings, focal duplicator, and cameras that could fire flash at 1/250th of a second, and so on.
As I always say on this matter, it's mostly a problem of instruments, with a bit of good eye to catch the right moment (and to find the subjects like this one, obviously! )...

True; from my side I've used for those shots a digital Olympus Camedia C-4000, it's now an old camera (digital cameras are still evolving quickly), 4 Mo pixels only but with a nice macro function... (and only 350g!)

[ANDREA]

...As I always say on this matter, it's mostly a problem of instruments, with a bit of good eye to catch the right moment (and to find the subjects like this one, obviously! )...

True; from my side I've used for those shots a digital Olympus Camedia C-4000, it's now an old camera (digital cameras are still evolving quickly), 4 Mo pixels only but with a nice macro function... (and only 350g!)

Well, after stopping my photographic job, I bought an almost identical digital camera, the Olympus Camedia C-3200 Zoom, a bit worst than yours, only 3.2 Megapixel, and I had to buy the 0.8x wide angle converter in order to have a decent wide angle capability (about 29 mm FL, when compared to a 35 mm camera).
But the wide angle lens was heavier and larger than the camera itself!
Now things have changed a lot, I have a digital 7 Megapixel with zoom up to a "true" 28 mm wide angle, and that's enough for my needs (but nothing if compared with my old 20-35mm F/2.8 Apochromatic zoom).
And macrophotography with my reflex was another world!
Bye

Andrea

[dirkpitt]

Basic question to either Andrea or ElChristou:
How close are you able to (or need to) get to the object for these macro shots? 5 cm? 1 cm?

[ANDREA]

Basic question to either Andrea or ElChristou:
How close are you able to (or need to) get to the object for these macro shots? 5 cm? 1 cm?

Hello Dirkpitt, I'll try to give you a correct answer, but I stopped working with Macrophotography about 15 years ago, so may be something will not be correct.
I'm sure that my 50 mm F/2.8 1:1 macro lens could focus at the minimum distance of 7.8", about 20 cm, without additional rings.
But with rings and 2x TeleExtender, reaching this way a true 8x magnification on the film, the minimum distance was about 3 cm.
It was impossible to go closer, even adding more rings, because then the space for lighting the subject with the annular macro flash would have been insufficient.
The big problem was the focusing, obviously, because at such a magnification, even if the F/stop was at 64, the depth of field is close to zero, and this is the reason why I fired a long series of images in order to be sure to have at least one of them well focused.
I hope to have been clear.
Bye

Andrea

[ElChristou]

Basic question to either Andrea or ElChristou:
How close are you able to (or need to) get to the object for these macro shots? 5 cm? 1 cm?

In the case of the Olympus, I think 1,5 to 2cm is the maximum. Now those digital cameras have some pretty sensible light algorithms, so even without flash it's possible to get this close... (but you must try to not cast too much shadow on the subject...)

[dirkpitt]

but you must try to not cast too much shadow on the subject...

Thanks for the detailed replies, Andrea/ElChristou! Good point about lighting. Now if there was something like "flash-through-the-lens" (aka "F-TTL")... but then again you might get very flat-looking lighting, and a lot of red eye. Imagine, all dozen eyes on Andrea's macro spider having red eye..

[LordFerret]

Actually Dirkpitt, such a thing does exist... it's actually an old idea.

Nikon (for one) had a medical-use Nikkor 200mm/f5.6 lens and 120mm/f4.0 lens. These are just that I know of being a Nikon owner/user. I'm sure others exist. See links below.

http://www.cameraquest.com/nf200med.htm
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/special/120medical.htm

I myself had created my own camera / flash / reflector bracket system, which I'd use 'out in the field' as it were. Now, these days, you can buy such rigs for your equipment - specifically for macro work. See links below.

http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=4&productNr=4803
http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=4&productNr=4804

I was going to reply last night (but didn't) about something Dollan had said having to do with limited macro ability, which is - With older fully manual 35mm SLR's, you could remove the lens and reverse it (turn it around backward)... then holding it by hand up against the body of the camera, you'd have a functional macro lens. I'd resorted to such tactics many a time. You just need to take a close-in light reading first, and pre-set your aperature (always bracket shots).

Also, for the hobbyist, rather than buy expensive flash equipment for macro work - there are ways to use your conventional (detachable type) flash and produce the same results.

[dirkpitt]

Oh wow
Technically I suppose it's flash wrapped around the lens and not through it, but still... it's pretty cool!