I’ve been reading up on Macro photography quite a bit lately. Well, that’s not quite true… I’ve been thinking of buying a proper macro lens for several days—the Tokina 100mm f/2.8, specifically—and reading review after review and spec sheet after spec sheet, and in the process I decided to see how the macro rig (the 75-150mm E Series, reversed and extended) and the Super Macro brothers stack up against the real Macros…

So I took a bunch of pictures of a ruler.

*yawn*

And I got some pretty interesting results:

The D7000′s sensor measures 23.6mm by 15.6mm. (For Sanity, we’ll say 24×16. Also, from now on all measurements will be in millimeters unless otherwise noted.)

The macro lens I’m considering produces a 1:1 reproduction at 11″ (~4.5″ from the end of the lens).

Well, the 75-150mm f/3.5 gets close-ish:

Simply reversed, the 75-150 reproduces roughly 36.5 x 24.5 … Read More »

Ever since I picked up a macro reverse ring and a set of extension tubes (this one and these, total cost $15.90), I’ve been wondering about mounting one lens on a second one just to see what would happen. I didn’t see a way to pull it off for quite some time, but then, in a flash of inspiration, I came across a brilliant solution. Unfortunately, this ‘solution’ occurred to me at work, early in the day, and by the time I got home, I’d forgotten. Oh well. I started playing around with the extension tubes and a couple of lenses anyway, when it hit me: Gaff Tape. And so the Super Macro Bros. were born.

Day 1. I mounted the Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 E Series on the D7000, taped an extension tube to it (somewhat haphazardly), and mounted the Nikon … Read More »

So I used the Light Pipe I made earlier today to create a Beauty Dish-ish type of thing. The fresh (and really bad) haircut didn’t do me any favors here, but this was really more of a proof-of-concept project than anything else.

I didn’t take any in process shots. Apologies. But I just cut a hole in the bottom of a roasting pan, shoved the light pipe through, attached it with gaff tape, and stuck a hastily-folded hunk of aluminum foil to the end of it to bounce light back into the pan. It makes really beautiful light, but it chews that light like crazy (and swallows about 75%) before spitting some beauty at the subject. I was having to toss out full pops to get me about 1/4 stop overexposed. I’m not sure if that was due to the distance … Read More »

I’ve been back on my homemade trail mix kick of late, and picked up a container of Sunsweet Plum Amazins* to add to the mix this week.

The chopped-prune raisin-type things are tasty enough, and will add a nice bit of sweetness (plus some fiber and nutrients) to the trail mix, but what I was more interested in the packaging, especially once I peeled off the shrink-wrapped plastic label to reveal this nice, white light-modifier-to-be…

The container is a bit big for the SB700, so I did some tracing…

and cutting…

and trimming… and trimming… and trimming… until the lid just barely scrunched around the flash.

Fine so far, but the green lid gives a bit of a green cast to the bottom.

So I applied some black duct tape, which made the fit a bit more snug.

The light spills out everywhere, which is great for … Read More »

365.25 Candy & Cigarettes: Monumental Sculpture from the Cockroft Collection. (Yes, it’s a silly title, and yes, I could’ve done a better job with it…)

Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 E Series, at about 150mm, ISO100, 1/80, f/16, and lit with my new toy: the Cereal Box Strip Box!
All credit for the idea goes to Alex Koloskov, and the poor execution is all mine.

I pasted some aluminum foil to the inside of a cereal box, taped over one end, rolled it up so it would slide over the SB700, and created a diffuser out of some semi-translucent plastic drawing paper (called Yupo or somesuch).

It works very well, though I really didn’t use it to the best effect here…

And yes, I shoot everything out of my small apartment, which is often a wreck after an afternoon of shooting.

Families the world over are glad they didn’t pay me to take a family portrait today…

365.19 D7000 Family Portrait, versions 1 & 2

On the left: Nikkor 50mm 1.8G, Nikkor 10-24 3.5-4.5G, and wacky Auntie Holga.
On the right: Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 E Series, Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 E Series, and the LensBaby Muse.
Center: D7000 and his trusty sidekick Sigma 30mm f/1.4.

ISO100, 6 seconds, f/16.

It was a pain getting everything (sort of) in focus. Kinda hard when the main subject is about 3 feet away from the rest of the group… Is that the way mirrors work in photos? Is it focusing as if the thing in the mirror was twice as far away as everything else? I have no idea about these things, but that seems simultaneously wildly unlikely and completely spot on, so maybe someone out there has a clue. But … Read More »