My macro set up!

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

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Cyclops
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My macro set up!

Post by Cyclops »

I remembered I had a lens coupling ring, bought by mistake when I wanted a stepping ring. Anyway it has a 49mm thread which just happens to be the same filter thread as the 100mm macro lens! And in my cupboard is an unused Hanimex 28mm f2.8 Pentax fit lens,bought S/H for the cosina and not used(The cosina is probably faulty so the lens is spare)
Well guess what, it also has a 49mm filter thread and so....

Image

Image
Now the macro lens uses a 1:1 adaptor in the form of a corrected supplementary lens , without which it only achieves half life size. But would it be best to use the macro lens without that lens and still achieve the same magnification?(When the supp. lens is on the macro lens infinity focus is no longer possible)
Either way I should now have about 3.5:1 magnification, or at least thats how it would work on a film camera, but as the 10D sensor magnifies the focal length by a factor of 1.6X so the lens combo becomes 160 and 44.8. Quick calculation (160/44.8 ) gives the same magnification, about 3.5X, cool!
Theres only one drawback here, no flash! The flashgun I have is a cobra 44oAF which works fine on the EOS 300, but apparently the 1oD doesnt recognise it(and i'm not gonna try it either!)
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Cyclops, welcome to the wonderful world of coupled lenses!

First, a point of clarification... Your 10D sensor does not "magnify the focal length". It simply crops a smaller rectangle from the image cast by the lens. At infinity focus -- and only at infinity focus -- these have essentially the same effect. Most photographers feel better about changing focal length than cropping, so "magnifies the focal length" has become a common way of describing the effect of the smaller sensor. But that description is only accurate for a single lens at infinity focus. At closer focus it becomes progressively incorrect, and by the time you get to macro, it's wildly wrong.

You'll find it far easier to correctly predict effects if you stick with the actual lens properties and sensor size. Avoid using "magnifies the focal length" in closeup and macro work.

In this case, your lens magnification will be 100:28 = 3.57:1 and your sensor size is 22.7 x 15.1 mm. So, your field size will be 6.36 x 4.23 mm. (22.7 / 3.57 = 6.36)

If you need to relate this back to film, say for purposes of communication, then "it's equivalent to 5.7:1 in 35 mm format". (36:6.36 = 5.7:1)

Now, about that supplementary lens, it's hard to say whether you'd be better off with or without it. Adding the lens will give you some more magnification (smaller field) but may also degrade the image quality. You can also get the same smaller field by cropping, which will degrade the image quality in a different way. My advice is to just try it both ways and see what you prefer.

--Rik

Edited to reword for clarity.
Last edited by rjlittlefield on Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Cyclops
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oops

Post by Cyclops »

sorry, double posting-how do i delete?
Last edited by Cyclops on Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

Yea i've done this before,but with a film camera and no macro lens. I would either stack a 24 mm onto a 50,or just reverse mount either of them. Now the macro lens there,in the pic its shown at infinity or close to it,and the lens is quite compact there. If i extend it i'll get higher magnification but i would expect either light loss or vignetting. And as for sensor magnification well i'm just quoting what everyone else uses,including the magazines I read(APS-C sensors have a magnification factor of 1.6x so you're wide angle becomes a standard lens and your standard becomes a short telephoto etc etc.)
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

Cyclops
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Macro test,lens extended v lens retracted,2 pics(links)

Post by Cyclops »

Right this is a cheap and dirty test here. The subject is a 5p coin(same size as 5 cents?), in the middle of which is a thistle detail. I set the cam up, stopped the reversed 28mm to f8, and used a mobile phone as the light source and took 2 pics. First one with the lens retracted (infinity setting), second with the lens full out(1:1 setting)
I expected to see major differences in image size but well, depsite the poor quality of the pics there seems to be no difference there!

The difference was in the exposure!
First pic 0.6 seconds (1/6th of a second)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/Dawnrider/a01.jpg

Second pic 4 seconds!!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/Dawnrider/a02.jpg

note the wild vignetting in both-that was a surprise because the view through the viewfinder was clear. but then i remembered that the viewfinder only shows 95% of the image!
Now we can see where a 100% viewfinder comes in handy!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

P_T
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Post by P_T »

What's with all the funky colours there? Is it noise? What ISO were you using?

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

P_T wrote:What's with all the funky colours there? Is it noise? What ISO were you using?
We have pretty coloured money in England ;)
No I think its because I had the ISO set to 400 when photographing the tour of britain yesterday and forgot to reset it to 100. The noise is more apparent too because I had to adjust the levels so you could see the images. I think what happened is because of the vignetting there is lots of black in the image which makes the meter overexpose,giving a low contrast image. Boosting levels increases contrast and so the noise shows up more.
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

P_T
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Post by P_T »

Cyclops wrote:We have pretty coloured money in England ;)
You haven't seen coloured money until you see Australian notes. :lol:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/berger/Banknotes.jpg

Did your mate give you the software with that camera? It should have a noise reduction option. Or perhaps you can even download it off Canon UK site.

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

P_T wrote:
Cyclops wrote:We have pretty coloured money in England ;)
You haven't seen coloured money until you see Australian notes. :lol:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/berger/Banknotes.jpg

Did your mate give you the software with that camera? It should have a noise reduction option. Or perhaps you can even download it off Canon UK site.
No I have no software for it at all,just photoshop elements. There's a canon programme out there called Zoombrowser but I'm not sure what its for(i know its freeware tho)
I'm actually having a bit of an issue as regards software. You see our PC runs XP which is fine with the canon but the new laptop is a Vista machine and it won't recognise the camera if i plug it in via USB. Canon stopped support for the 10D befor Vista came out! But I bought a card reader which plugs into the USB port on the laptop,sorted! I still hate Vista tho!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

P_T
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Post by P_T »

Zoombrowser EX was the software that came with my Canon point and shoot camera. It didn't have any RAW support though but then again, maybe it's different without the EX.

As for your laptop... I really would recommend you dual booting it with XP 32/64 depending on your hardware or even getting rid of Vista altogether. It really isn't much of an improvement over XP, certainly isn't worth using if you're having problems with it.

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

Yea i hate Vista,as soon as the warranty is up on the laptop we'll get XP sp3 for it. Does my head in! And yea i downloaded Zoombrowser EX to the laptop but it wouldn't recognise the camera-i wasn't sure what Com port i was supposed to use. I went thru them all but no joy. As for Raw well I don't think I'd ever bother with it. Jpeg is good enough for me. If i can get upto 10 x 8 prints from it thats as big as I need. I hardly ever get prints made,digital has made me lazy. Plus I don't have the money to get any prints done at the moment.(our printer's nowhere near good enough really)
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

P_T
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by P_T »

I've always shot with RAW ever since I got my DSLR, it is one of the advantage over compact and some superzoom cameras after all. I can adjust the sharpness, reduce noise, fix white balance and even have -2 to +2 EV that I can adjust should the image be slightly too dark or bright. Think of it as a medium dynamic range image.

I think Photoshop Element can open RAW and do those adjustment as well.

Being an uncompressed format, or perhaps lossless compression, you do get larger file size but then it'll be also be a better quality image and harddrives are real cheap these days too as long as you don't buy them from department stores or well known electronic stores. Buy them online or from those small specialist PC shops.

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

I don't think I need RAW to be honest. I can adjust sharpness,WB,EV etc in photoshop,and noise isn't so much of a problem(it is with the panasonic but that uses TIFF rather than RAW.
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

rjlittlefield
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Re: oops

Post by rjlittlefield »

Cyclops wrote:sorry, double posting-how do i delete?
You can delete your own postings if no one (including yourself) has posted after them. (In other words, if your posting is still the last posting, then you can delete it.)

Just push the small X button that appears at the upper right of your posts. It has a tooltip that says "Delete this post".

Under any other circumstances, normal users cannot delete a post, but you can always ask an administrator to delete it for you. In this thread, I have deleted the one that appeared to have been duplicated, then edited to blank it out.
And as for sensor magnification well i'm just quoting what everyone else uses,including the magazines I read(APS-C sensors have a magnification factor of 1.6x so you're wide angle becomes a standard lens and your standard becomes a short telephoto etc etc.)
Yep, and what they're saying is true at long working distances. Just be aware that the model breaks down at short distances. A 50 mm macro lens that's set at 1:1 does not suddenly act like an 80 mm macro lens just because it's mounted on a 1.6x sensor. Instead the field shrinks. If anything, it now acts more like a 50 mm macro lens that has suddenly become set at 1.6:1.

I didn't really mean to suggest that you give up "magnifies the focal length" under all circumstances. But it doesn't work for macro.

I have edited my earlier posting to make this clear for later readers.

--Rik

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

Thanks Rik. Its interesting how the so called magnification factor disappears at the macro range! I have no idea how that works and a lot of the science goes over my head(can't crunch all those numbers in my head!) I'm intrigued tho how a 50 mm on a digi goes back to being a 50 but with a higher magnification!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

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