I have been mostly eating

And playing with Mono Conversions…

As part of my messing with the Button flowers a few nights back, I also tried to get a nice tight macro shot.

There’s a macro competition in the camera club coming up shortly, so I wanted to do things “by the book”. A definition of macro photography being that the image on the film (I’m not sure what this film thing is) should be the same size as the object, but that up to 4 times smaller is also allowed. Now, I’ve no idea how you measure that in Digital world where cropping is so simple, but I decided to work to a simple rule for this shot…

The lens had to be sharp at 1:1 and focused at the minimum focus distance. For this shot I used a Canon EF 100mm F2.8 on my 400D. If you’re in the market for one, I’d recommend it.

To get the shot above, I shot at F/29 from a tripod. You can see that even with an aperture this small, the depth of field is still pretty shallow.

Focusing also required me making use of a Macro Rail for the first time. A Macro Rail is essentially a fine adjustment mount for your tripod and camera. In my case, the rail mounts to my existing tripod mount and then the camera mounts to it. Adjustment is performed along two axis by use of small screws. It’s pretty neat, though I’d suggest the ball mount I have isn’t the right choice for a tripod head in cases like this as the initial set up was a nightmare!

One of the nice things about having photography as a hobby is that if you don’t pick up the camera a lot for a few weeks it doesn’t cost you anything.

Apart from a frantic weekend sorting pictures for my brother, I haven’t been taking a lot of pictures recently. Lots of reasons for it, but none worth wasting your time with. Interestingly, even though I wasn’t taking pictures, I was still reading other websites and magazines. I guess I’m still addicted to the camera.

Anyway, I picked up an unusual button flower vase at a recent craft fair. It made an interesting subject, so I thought I’d see if I could do something with it. Rather than break out light stands and umbrellas and reflectors I decided to see if I could just light it with available light…

So, these shots are lit with some halogen spots under my kitchen units and reflected with either a piece of A4 paper or a 60watt desk lamp. As basic as you could get.

I guess I could reshoot this and remove the highlights by diffusing the light some. But I kind of like them on it. It gives the image a more rounded effect or something

And in black and white…

As usual, thoughts on a postcard, or a comment box, or an email.