Axinite

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

Beatsy
Posts: 2105
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Axinite

Post by Beatsy »

Tinkering with a small specimen of axinite and pushing the DImage 5400 towards its lower mag limits. Stack of 150 images at 0.9x on full frame.
Image

mjkzz
Posts: 1681
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:38 pm
Location: California/Shenzhen
Contact:

Post by mjkzz »

Nice image! I always wanted to tinker with minerals, but they are so expensive.

Maybe a "blacker" bg? It looks like the lens is picking up a lot of ambient light. But then again, I am talking to a lighting master, so this could be intended effect.

Beatsy
Posts: 2105
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Post by Beatsy »

mjkzz wrote:Nice image! I always wanted to tinker with minerals, but they are so expensive.

Maybe a "blacker" bg? It looks like the lens is picking up a lot of ambient light. But then again, I am talking to a lighting master, so this could be intended effect.
Thanks. I did intentionally leave the BG "off black" as I've been trying to avoid totally dark backgrounds of late. But you may well be right - darker might be better.

Since you're into extreme macro, a good trick is to go to a mineral store and ask them for some of the sand and grit from the bottoms of their various boxes of minerals. Probably pays to buy a small specimen or two first though. You can get loads of very photogenic fragments that way - usually free.

hero
Posts: 72
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:38 pm
Location: California

Post by hero »

Micromounts and thumbnails generally are not very expensive unless the species is rare, and nice ones can be had for less than a filter ring adapter. Besides, the point is to take photos of tiny things, so a mineral or crystal that is larger than a few millimeters, I find, doesn't have as much appeal or fascination when I photograph it. My preference is to collect these because they don't take up a lot of space, and they tend to exhibit cleaner crystal growth under magnification.

Beatsy is right--even some of the debris from specimens has something interesting to see in them, although I think it's easier to pose and arrange something that's larger than a grain of sand.

At 10x, I started to see things I never noticed before in specimens I'd acquired years ago. It takes a lot of patience and care to search, because minerals are not like living organisms, which have identifiable anatomical structures. I can search and search for hours and still miss something, or fail to get just the right vantage point, and that just makes me want to try harder. The whole experience is enormously addictive.

Some species that are fairly common but I think have a lot of visual appeal include:

malachite
calcite
chalcopyrite
hemimorphite
gypsum (var. selenite)
fluorite
wulfenite
pyromorphite

And within these, there are some specimens from certain localities that are more highly prized (and thus more expensive), so shop around.

mjkzz
Posts: 1681
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:38 pm
Location: California/Shenzhen
Contact:

Post by mjkzz »

Beatsy wrote:
mjkzz wrote:Nice image! I always wanted to tinker with minerals, but they are so expensive.

Maybe a "blacker" bg? It looks like the lens is picking up a lot of ambient light. But then again, I am talking to a lighting master, so this could be intended effect.
Thanks. I did intentionally leave the BG "off black" as I've been trying to avoid totally dark backgrounds of late. But you may well be right - darker might be better.

Since you're into extreme macro, a good trick is to go to a mineral store and ask them for some of the sand and grit from the bottoms of their various boxes of minerals. Probably pays to buy a small specimen or two first though. You can get loads of very photogenic fragments that way - usually free.
I will try to get some "freebies" at mineral shops.

mjkzz
Posts: 1681
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:38 pm
Location: California/Shenzhen
Contact:

Post by mjkzz »

hero wrote: At 10x, I started to see things I never noticed before in specimens I'd acquired years ago.
yeah, definitely, at 10x, things look different . . . you sound a lot like my friend who did offered me some 2-4mm "sample", it is just that it is so hard to receive stuff from outside China. Anyways, thanks for all the info, now I am so tempted.

mawyatt
Posts: 2497
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

Steve,

That looks interesting, nice image. How close to the sensor is the back of the DI5400 to get 0.9X?

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

Beatsy
Posts: 2105
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Post by Beatsy »

mawyatt wrote:...How close to the sensor is the back of the DI5400 to get 0.9X?
About 70mm. You can go as low as 0.7x, but the corners start to mush up a bit on FF. Having said that, it's no problem with deep stacks as you have to crop a fair bit off the edges to get rid of the streakies (due to the short FL of ~35mm).

Beatsy
Posts: 2105
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Post by Beatsy »

Here's another side of the same specimen showing an epidote inclusion. Same capture stats as the first pic (but a blacker background)
Image

mjkzz
Posts: 1681
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:38 pm
Location: California/Shenzhen
Contact:

Post by mjkzz »

oh wow, nice!

Sumguy01
Posts: 1715
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:05 pm
Location: Ketchikan Alaska USA

Post by Sumguy01 »

:D Nice photos.
Thanks for sharing.

mawyatt
Posts: 2497
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

Beautiful!!

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

santiago
Posts: 109
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2018 5:56 am
Location: Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Post by santiago »

very nice! the second one is my favourite
Santiago
Flickr

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic