Stacked Lenses
I finally got around to bolting together the two Cokin filter adapters that I bought a while ago. The aim being to stack two lenses together to experiment with some real macro photography.
The results can best be described as mixed, but fascinating — seen so close up, some stuff looks almost completely unexpected. The trouble is, with such a narrow depth of field (I estimate a couple of hundred micrometers), it's really hard to keep anything in focus.
The middle image is an erigeron flower — about 10mm from tip to tip, with the little critter being about 2mm in body length.
The last image is the beast itself — my Tamron 70-300mm zoom, stacked with a reversed Canon 28-105mm.
The first image is left as an exercise for the reader — leave your guesses in the comments.
Comments
Jeremy wrote, on 6 December 2004, at 11:21PM:
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen such an extended lense =) Fairly intimidating, how do you balance it?
I think the small DoF brings a really unique feel to the images, especially the second one. I'm not sure if I've seen such a DoF before, and I imagine it requires a lot of patience, but it makes for some nice effects.
Marty wrote, on 6 December 2004, at 11:38PM:
Jeremy:
Balance -- pretty much one hand at each end. To avoid the shakes I have to have the bottom of my left hand resting on something just below the subject, then rock backwards and forwards until I can see the subject -- this makes it a bit limiting in what I can photograph.
DoF -- Yep, I have an image on my desktop at the moment that's pretty weird (due to narrow DoF), but cool. Unfortunately it's pretty hit-and-miss what I can get right from a compositional point-of-view -- I think I need a lot more practice.
jody wrote, on 8 December 2004, at 5:57AM:
Whoa, I did not know you could use a zoom lens at the beginning of a chain :)
Impressive pictures, lets see some more =) I just love macro shots, especially with the DoF you have in them.
Marty wrote, on 8 December 2004, at 7:21AM:
jody:
I really just used what I had at hand. The weight of the second lens tends to pull the first lens out to full extension any time you point it down.
That said, the flower shot was at 130mm focal length (as opposed to the full 300mm). As soon as the focal length of the first lens gets too small you get severe vignetting, which you can only just notice here, as it suits the circular nature of the subject.
I'll have to rustle up some more of these -- maybe on the weekend.
Emily wrote, on 14 November 2005, at 1:06PM:
I'm itching with curiousity as to the origin of the first image. is it a fabric of some sort? It really looks like fiber to me, but what is in the background is still a mystery. I'm surprised that more people haven't tried to guess on this one.
Marty wrote, on 15 November 2005, at 1:09AM:
Emily:
I, too, am surprised that more people didn't offer suggestions :-)
It's actually a garden hose -- the fibers are the woven nylon (embedded within the plastic of the hose) that gives it its strength, and what looks like the background is actually the scratched outer surface of the hose.