Manual macro on the cheap.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Dave Smith

I have just taken delivery of a 454 from WE.

Dave

I hope you will let us know how you get on with it Dave. A positive review may well get me on the trail for one.

Don

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Dave Smith

Thanks Leif. I have just taken delivery of a 454 from WE, but no doubt others will be interested.

Dave

To be honest I should have gone through WE as that is where I am buying the QR platform, and they do next day delivery as standard. DD take 3 to 5 days. Sigh.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Dave Smith

Thanks Leif. I have just taken delivery of a 454 from WE, but no doubt others will be interested.

Dave

So, who's first for a review then? I will wait a little while before posting impressions.

[Dave Smith]

Originally Posted by Leif

So, who's first for a review then? I will wait a little while before posting impressions.

Sorry not to have given my impressions before but have been rather busy of late. Today I had my first go with the 154 and it does just what I hoped it would. I have it mounted on a Manfrotto 405 head (which I bought to take to Australia to carry the driven mount for astrophotography) and so have fine control of the angle of the camera and now with the 154 backwards and forwards movement as well. There is slight backlash but it did not cause me a problem. To test it I have used a 200mm lens with 1.4TC and a reversed old 50mm lens on the front which I believe will give a real magnification of 5.6x
My subject is ordinary table salt. At the same time I thought I would have a go of the CZM program to improve the depth of field and as the adjustments would have to be very fine, make a good test of the 154. The camera was set at an angle of approx 45 degrees and I took six pictures with the point of focus at different depths in the field of view.

I am certainly pleased with the 154, the control was perfectly adequate in this situation. It has a large range of movement (120mm) and conveniently two places to adjust the movement in case one for example ends up in an awkward place. There is also a locking screw as well as a lever that releases the whole plate so that very rough positioning can be quickly obtained. The instructions warn you to be carefull using that with a camera mounted as the camera, if not supported, could suddenly move under its own weight and get damaged.

As far as the CZM is concerned six pictures wasn't enough in this case and there are a few obvious errors in the stacking especially on the right and double images near the bottom. Even from this quick trial a reasonable image can be obtained by cropping those bits out.

The first picture is one of the frames and the second is the 6 stacked.

I hope this helps.

Dave

[Dave Smith]

Following a suggestion from Don, here are some closer pics of the 454 micropositioning plate which may be of interest to any potential purchaser.

Dave

[Don Hoey]

Nice one Dave,

Thanks for that. At least you can see what you are getting in a lot more detail than from the Manfrotto catalogue or web site.

Don

[Leif]

I had a play with the Manfrotto focussing stage, and a reversed 28mm lens on my D200. The subject was a docile Marbled White Butterfly. The image is rather poor, but at least it gives an idea of what can be done. The only way is up!

I've attached the image and a 100% crop. There is some fuzziness near the eye, and I am not convinced that is not an artifact of the lens. I used a Nikon 28mm F2.8 AIS lens at F16.

What I found out is that:

a) DOF is incredibly shallow making focussing very tough even with a rail.
b) The slightest bit of wind makes life impossible.
c) Composition is incredibly hard (see point a).
d) Lighting is hard because the lens is so close to the subject.
e) The lens sharpness at F16 seems pretty good, at least within the small zone of sharp focus. Chromatic aberration is zero.
f) I focussed with the lens wide open. I then had to stop the lens down. This is a right pain because you have to put your finger near the subject, potentially knocking it, and it is hard to see the aperture scale too.

What is really needed is a miniature focussing stage with movements of no more than an inch maximum. Ideally x, y and rotational movements are needed. Something like the bit on a lathe that holds the tool turret would be ideal, but smaller and lighter.

Or use flash and dispense with the tripod ...

The more I try this the more I admire the fantastic 2:1 close ups on some web sites.

[Alex Paul]

Hi Leif .... Welcome to the pain and joy of reversing.... I find hand holding makes life a lot easier when you can't control every aspect of the shot... As you see the slightest movement makes the difference between a sharp shot and sh_t shot..... With to much gear it is impossible to adjust on the fly... I find that once I achieve focus, I them rock back and forth very slightly to fine tune the eye.... Here is an example I may have posted already, but I can give you many....This is 4:1 This is your thread so I am not going to high jack it.... With lots of practice hand holding produces pretty consistent results..... Oh yes with a reversed lens an out front diffused flash is a must.. BTW I really like what you produced.....Take care.....

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n.../IMG_29213.jpg

[Leif]

Hello Alex. That is a great shot of a monster creature. Or was it small? What equipment did you use? Sorry if you have mentioned this elsewhere, but it can sometimes be hard to locate earlier posts.

On a more general topic, here is a very nice web site with some lovely information about reversed lenses. His images IMO are outstanding, and what's more, he uses relatively simple equipment (probably the same as Alex?):

http://blog.mdsign.nl/

I like his simple diffuser for use with a reversed lens. It looks easily carried about in a camera ruck sack too.

[Leif]

This thread seems to have calmed down. But in case anyone is interested.

I tried the Dutch man's technique of a reversed 28mm lens on a D200 with the built in flash for lighting. For various reasons I could not get on with it. It is well worth trying, but maybe my hands are too shaky.

I also tried my Nikon 60mm F2.8 AF lens with tubes to go to nearly twice life size. This was much more successful. See the attachment for a Ringlet Butterfly seen close up. I think the picture is in many respects a success, but I found 2 key points:

1) The lens was so close to the insect that it was almost touching it, and disturbing the nearly vegetation, including the leaf the insect was resting on.

2) Because the lens was so close to the insect, the lens was shading it from daylight, and the built in flash. Hence the lighting is very flat and reduces the impact of the image.

In other words, the image is sharp, but the lighting is poor, and hence the image is a bit dull IMO.

One little success I had was a home made diffuser. I've read the excellent descriptions of home made diffuseres on this site, but I was always concerned that they were not easy to carry in a rucksack, as they look crushable. I had some old Waitrose pudding containers that I use for collecting fungi samples and they looked ideal. They are about 4" across and 2" deep with a pop on top. I filled one with thin crumpled foam sheet (about 1mm thick) and attached it to the front of the built in flash with an elastic band. It turned out to be very effective and it can be carried in a rucksack without risk of damage. And if it falls off the camera onto concrete it will not break or split. If there is a request, I can post a photo of the diffuser. (It is very basic.)

The second attachment is a Burnet moth photographed with a 200mm lens and the built in flash set to provide fill flash, and the diffuser attached. It has helped avoid harsh specular highlights which can be a problem on the moth's wings.