Moose wrote:
> If this is an exercise to have a lot of fun fussing around with
> cheap ways to use stuff in complex and inconvenient ways, forget I said
> anything.
Stepping in here -- <ding!> That's a lot of what I'm doing with the
reversed lenses. Sure, I can get stupidly close, but I've been meaning
to do something with one of the junky old 2x converters I have sitting
around for ages.
> First, I am not suggesting that you get a 90 mm lens.
That said, this prompted me to retrieve the Viv S1 90/2.5 1:1 macro
off the shelf, and _wow_, is it ever a more pleasant experience taking
photos with that than with the reversed 7mm.. For one thing, at f2.5 it
actually _feels like_ f2.5, whereas the 7mm at "f1.9" is still pretty
dark, and for another, while I'm further away, it's a lot easier to
frame things up when I don't lose focus because of my pulse..
(final frame size there at max.magnification is 18mm across. Duh,
because it's 1:1 but I have 2x crop factor..)
> The camera I used
> for my examples has a sensor roughly twice as large as the one in your
> E-500. To get about the same working distance and angle of view on the
> E-500 that I had on the 5D, I am suggesting a 50 mm lens.
Possibly the most useful metric here is be pixels-per-millimetre (of
_subject_) -- that would let us ignore crop factors, or alternatively
make it possible to take into account cropping in photoshop.
So, on an E-330, this lens gives me 174 pixels/mm. On the 5D, it'd get
me, lessee here, 121 pixels/mm, because while there's a heck of a lot
more pixels to go around, there's no "free magnification" from cropping.
(my previous macro camera, Coolpix 4500, gets 133 pixels/mm).
DOF stuff I don't understand either, I'll admit, except that the 4500
has heaps of it.
> Using an f2 auto lens, you will find the viewfinder image much brighter.
> For macro, you will be shooting stopped down a lot, but the fast lens
> makes the viewfinder brighter for framing and focusing. Focusing at a
> larger aperture also makes the visual DOF when focusing very shallow, so
> it is easier to set the focal plane at just the right distance.
Seconded to all of this -- I also find that the E-330's live view
refreshes a lot more quickly with lots of light coming in, presumably
because it can take a bright-enough exposure at 60fps; when it's darker,
the view refreshes noticeably more slowly.
> That is exactly what the E-330 is for. In B live view macro mode, you
> see on the LCD using the actual sensor that will capture the image. The
> LCD is adjustable for angle to make low angle shots easier, you can
> enlarge the image 10x on the screen for precise focus, and the DOF you
> see on the screen is exactly what you will get in the final image.
I don't find the precise focus all that helpful for macro myself, but
that's possibly because I'm always aiming for as much DOF as I can get,
so it's not as critical as it is with (say) astrophotography, where
not-quite-infinity is very different to actually infinity.
> The E-330 is arguably the finest SLR made to date for macro work.The
> E-510 will lose the adjustable angle screen, but gain anti-shake.
For static subjects sitting on a table, the flip-out screen isn't as
much of a big deal, because either I'm taking a photo from above and
beside, in which case I can frame things up hand-held, or if it's more
awkward I'm using a tripod and then can take my time.
In the field, though, it's great.
> The OM Zuiko 50 mm macros have a longer focusing helicoid so they can
> focus to 1:2, rather then the 1:10 of the normal 50 mm lenses.
And the vivitar 55/2.8 takes this to extremes, focussing all the way
down to 1:1, at which point the lens has pretty much doubled in length.
>> So you now see little flowers too!
> Not entirely new to me, I just haven't done it for a while, nor with
> digital equipment.
Whereas I'm still waiting for spring, and have taken pretty much all
the closeup photos of snow I feel I can take. (actually, not strictly
speaking true, but I haven't worked out how to catch an individual
snowflake to photo it yet).
-- dan
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