Comparison Of DIY Macro Solutions
TeraPixel (Charly) is using a wide array of DIY solutions for his amazing macro photographs. Including reversed lenses (with electronics modified to allow metering and control), bellows and extension tubes, with new lenses like the Nikon 35mm/1.8, the Canon 50/1.8 and old ones like the Nikkor 35-70 and the Fujinon 50/1.4.
Charly recently compared four of the possible combinations of the lenses/setups, and reveled the big difference in quality they produce. (Click the photo for more info).
"The comparison pieces are 100% crops from the untouched raw-images, shown in (how I think) chronological order. A relatively new 35/1.8, a Nikkor 35-70 from analog times, a Canon 50/1.8 and a Fujinon 50/1.4. (Click the links in the image notes to see the details) I tried to keep the viewing angle, magnification and focal plane identical, but I did not completely succeed.
An external flash with a diffuser was used set to minimum power, so all the shots were taken at the same amount of light."
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Comments
Might be hope for the Canon
There might be more hope for the Canon. He says in the Flickr commentary the Canon was bright and he had to stop down, perhaps far enough for diffraction issues. Seems like if he could control it a bit more, the result would approach the Nikon 35-70
Thanks!
Oh wow! I just noticed this article on the RSS feed and I feel honored again. Please don't hesitate to ask questions here or on flickr and I will surely try to help!
Merry christmas and a happy new year to everyone!
Regards,
Charly
Canon lens
Hi,
the canon lens I used was also an old one with manual apperture (not the one linked above). Modified as is it's impossible to guess the exact aperture but this was my prefered macro solution before I prepared the 35-70 zoom lens. Very bright and handy. You can still find some example shots in my stream.
I tried to keep at last one parameter constant in my experiment, and the easiest was the flashlight.
Regards Charly
Hi Charly, Thanks for taking
Hi Charly,
Thanks for taking the time to do the comparison. I've tried using my 35mm Olympus lens reversed using a reversing ring. I'm at a loss at how to adjust the aperature. Do you have any advice?
Thanks!
Aperture
Merry chrisstmas Barb!
Controlling the aperture on a reversely mounted lens is often a problem. This is why I bought a cheap old lens with an aperture ring for my latest setup. Nikon still uses mechanical aperture, so you can open and close it even when reversely mounted, but not very useful.
For Canon there is a trick to remove the lens with the dof-preview button pressed to keep it closed, but it is eventually risky and I don't know if this also works for Olympus. I, personally, would give it a try...
Of course you could also try a double-lens setup, like I did here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/terapixel/5849710332 This is more bulky, but you get full automatic exposure control.
Or use a paper diaphragm, and build your own bokeh master :D
Best regards! Charly
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