Nikkor 300mm + Canon 500D close-up lens>great combo

A forum to ask questions, post setups, and generally discuss anything having to do with photomacrography and photomicroscopy.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

LVF
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:17 pm
Location: Sequim, Washington

Nikkor 300mm + Canon 500D close-up lens>great combo

Post by LVF »

I posted photos using this combination plus the Kenko 68mm extension tubes. ChrisR suggested to "try without the tubes". So here are some photos without the tubes.

I used the Nikon D500 camera plus the Nikkor 300mm f/4E PF lens, with the Canon 500D close-up lens screwed on the front of the 300mm lens.

This combination of photographic gear produces a near 1:1 photo with the front of the 500D lens 16 inches from the subject.

I determine the magnification of my photographic gear by using my Nikon D500 macro close-up target that I made using Photoshop:

Image

The target show the actual physical size of the Nikon D500 sensor and multiple increases in sensor size.

I move the camera back away from the target until the camera can focus on the target. Here is a photo of the target taken with this combination:

Image

The 300mm lens + canon 500D lens, produces a 1:1.33 close-up photograph at a working distance of 16 inches. From now on I will call this a 1:1 macro photograph for simplicity.

Notice the printer ink pattern on the photographic paper used to print the target. Looks like this combination might be fairly sharp.

I used this combination to photograph some flowers, with the flowers 16 inches from the front of the Canon 500D lens.

I mounted the camera on a tripod and used live view to manually focus the the camera. I used the Nikon MC-36 cable release to fire the shutter after I took my fingers off the lens focus ring for a few seconds to reduce vibration. The camera was set at ISO 640 due to the low illumination of the Ott Lamp used to light the flowers. This gave a 1/60th second shutter speed at f/16.

I processed the Nikon D500 camera raw Nef files as follows. I opened the Nef files with DxO Optics Pro, because Camera Raw CS6 will not open Nikon D500 Nef files. I do absolutely zero processing in DxO, and only use it to export Dng files, which will open in Camera Raw CS6.

I open the Dng files in Camera Raw CS6 and do absolutely no sharpening and noise reduction. I only increase the exposure (by +1.0 ev in most cases) and increase clarity. I do no other processing in Camera Raw. I proceed to open the resulting psd file in Photoshop CS6. I do absolutely no processing in Photoshop. I use Photoshop to "save for web", to produce photos that meet the requirements of this forum. I do as little processing as needed now, because I really messed up photos in earlier posts, which resulted in several criticisms, which I do not want repeated.

Here is a close-up photo of an orange Gerbera Daisy taken with the daisy 16 inches in front of the 500D lens:

Image

This photo shows the central disk which shows the Disk Florets around and between the Male Stamens.

In photoshop, I took a 1024px by 1024 px square slices of the original 5568px by 3712px photo file, and "saved it for web", to show you some regions within the flower. Here is region one within the central disk:

Image

This shows more clearly the thin disk florets and larger male stamens.

Here is a photo of the upper right region:

Image

This shows clearly the "banana like" male Stamens which surrounds the central disk.

Here is a photo of the middle right region:

Image

Moving on, here is a photo of a yellow Gerbera Daisy:

The program has stop allowing me to upload pictures so I will continue with a reply to this post.

Leon

LVF
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:17 pm
Location: Sequim, Washington

Continue my post

Post by LVF »

Here is a photo of a yellow Gerbera Daisy:

The "upload picture" button is not working. So I cannot show any more photos I have taken with the Nikon D500 camera, the Nikkor 300mm f/4E PF lens, and the Canon 500D close-up lens screwed on the front of the 300mm lens.

It looks like this combination would be good for close-up photos at 16 inches of shy subjects or stinging subjects.

Leon

LVF
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:17 pm
Location: Sequim, Washington

Problem solved, Continue 300mm + Canon 500D lens photos

Post by LVF »

The "upload picture" frame was hiding behind my posting page on the computer screen in the previous post. So the "browse" frame was hidden and the "upload picture" button would not respond.

So now I can continue my previous post.

Here is a photo of a yellow Gerbera Daisy:

Image

As explained in my previous post; in photoshop, I took a 1024px by 1024 px square slice of the original 5568px by 3712px photo file, and "saved it for web", to show you some regions within the flower. These are not magnifications of the photo. The following photos are sections of the original raw file.

Here is a photo of the central disk of the yellow Gerbera Daisy:

Image

This photo clearly show the thin disk florets surrounding the male stamens.

Here is another view:

Image

And another view:

Image

As I said in my previous post, this photographic gear combination should be good enough to take close-up photos at 16 inches, of shy subjects or dangerous stinging ones.

Leon

ChrisR
Site Admin
Posts: 8668
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:58 am
Location: Near London, UK

Post by ChrisR »

Well done -
Yes that certainly looks "good enough":)

I thought I'd try putting the two center shots, with and without the tubes, togethe, rand magnified to match.

Here it is, look at the magnification to see which is which:

Image

I think the tubes helped!
Chris R

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic