Tilting Macro Bellows — Field Test
Following the test like previous post of homemade bellows, I took it to the park.
Setup was either Micro Nikkor 55 mm or Tamron 90 mm Macro on the bellows
which was mounted on Canon 5D Mk-III. And the most of the shots were taken
while the lens was tilted up to 30 degree. (Nikkor 55 mm = up to 20 degree,
Tamron 90 mm = up to 30 degree —– before the corner cut-off starts.)
And as no F-aperture control, all the photos were taken with
fully open F-aperture. (And hand held.)
Photo above, Right photo, you may see something strange = why the back petal
was out of focus. —– Because the lens was tilted.
Those photos were the too conspicuous demonstration of the tilting effect. 😀
But those were a bit more subtle.
And above left photo was made with Pan-focus effect and
the right was with Shallow-focus effect.
Shallow focus with rather exaggerated out of focus Bokhe.
With the Bellows extension, the lense can give even larger close-up.
There were a lots of Bees and Bumble Bees though, they were too busy.
This small black fly seemed to taking a rest.
This Hovering Fly — right 2 photos, she was in the air hovering.
(I needed at least F5.6, not fully open 2.5)
Looks quite inconspicuous, still this photo was benefited by the tilting effect.
—– Tilting the lens works well though, to have full benefit of it need to have it
from infinity, not just on the close-up = But to do it,
I need to make yet another Tilting SLR using DSLR body. 🙂
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Tilting Macro Bellows Test
These are the photos of the test shot of the Tilting Macro Bellows
which I’ve shown in this blog two posts ago.
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In photography, Focused Plain is parallel to the Image Plain. = It’s mean if you
want a photo of the wall painting, you have to aim a camera parallel to the wall.
(Ideally, the camera should be held at a half height of the wall and in the center,
provided the lens can cover wide enough for the whole wall.) But when you want
a photo of the carpet, you may not able to hold the camera right under the ceiling.
= Then you have to take a photo from one end of the room. As the carpet stretching
end to end, to have the whole area in focus is not easy. = You have to use small
F-aperture and very slow shutter speed.—– Otherwise, use a camera which can tilt a
lens or use a lens called Tilt-shift Lens which may carry a price of £1500 or more.
——- Photo above Left is a modified camera “Conica-Tilt 2” and here with
——- Nikon PC-Nikkor 35 mm F2.8
——- and the Right, this massive lens is Canon TS-E 24 mm F3.5
When the lens was tilted 10 degree, it can focus the object 20 degree out of parallel, in
other words, even if the camera was held parallel to the wall (90 degree to the floor),
if the lens was tilted 45 degree down, it gives a sharp focus of the floor, end to end.
( But very few lens can work while tilted 45 degree =due to limit of the image circle.)
Photo above, are the demonstration of Tilting lens effects.
Photo Left, the lens was dropped hence, Pan-focus effect was created.
But in the photo right, the same degree tilted lens was aimed to the same subject
“Upside down” (Lens was tilted upward) hence giving very shallow depth of focus.
The relation of the Subject – Lens – Camera was like this.
Left for Pan-focus and the Right for Shallow-Focus effect.
When the lens was tilted, focused plain is no longer parallel to the camera,
= like on this photo, as the lens was tilted left 20 degree, the focused plain
runs almost corner to corner. So that, this kind of technique gives more
choice of the focus control = which subject to be captured sharp.
(The photos here, Micro Nikkor 55 mm F3.5 was used on Canon 5D Mk-3
with F-aperture was set to fully open F3.5)
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Tilting Macro Bellows
This is a photo of a hand made close-up accessory = Tilting Bellows, I made when
I was first year in my Uni’ and it was featured in a Japanese photo-magazine.
On that time, I didn’t have proper Macro lens — I had Nikon F Photomic,
24 mm F2.8 and 50 mm F2 that’s all. And for the special close-up photo
of the plant, I was using modified Mamiya Press (6×9 format).
I made this mini bellows for use with 50 mm f2 lens and this combination
gave 1/5 to life size close-up. —– Without doubt, this must be the most
rudimental, and cheap bellows ever designed !
(You may see the extreme minimal way of the thinking in this design !)
= Lens rear cap was mounted on a L-shaped small aluminium panel and
it was connected to a body cap with a kind of bellows made out of a plastic
sheet (it was a dark curtain). Lens panel and the camera body were both
mounted on a straight camera bracket by means of 1/4″ screws which
allow the lens to be held up to 50 mm away from the body, and the front
panel (hence the lens) could be held in angle to the body, therefore
tilting effect could be easily used as a focus control as well !
I’m certain I got the original somewhere though, to use it with Canon EOS 5D,
the height of the lens is not the same and to use it with Nikon D810 would be
too awkward ( because of their setting of Non-CPU lens. ) —> I decided to
make the same for 5D, but use with Nikon lens —– Nikon lens has manual
F-aperture ring and the flange-back is 1.5 mm longer than Canon. )
Photos above shows the making process. (I used the lens rear-cap again. )
Then, to make a bellows, this time I found a black leather in a flea-market.
—– Still, bag-bellows has to be designed and stitched in rather awkward way
though, it can be done anyway = only needs stitch, — by stitch. 😀
So, this is the finished product. (Though, I’m going to change the
body mount ring to black aluminium one.)
Still, what all those works for, was remained to be seen with the resulting photo.
This is the sample of the tilting effects. (55 mm Micro Nikkor, 20 degree tilt)
(Top photo shows Pan-focus effect. Bottom photo is its reverse effect.)
If the junk material was available, the cost to make like this would be
as little as £5 if not nil. 🙂
———-
PS: Good additional reading = [Shallow Focus — Pan-focus]
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Small Repair (2)
My friend brought a broken external speaker to our Weekly Meeting
in Greenwich. Its left channel was working but the condition was not stable.
—– When electronic device was unstable to a mechanical shock, the cause
may be in a mechanical component such as switch, volume control
otherwise somewhere has a loose connection.
With a detailed observation inside and the check of the resistance value,
the Volume Control (blue block) found to be faulty.
—– So, I removed it from the board and disassembled to see the inside.
On the middle of right photo, you can see the burnt-out volume structure.
To check whether rest of the circuit is sound or not, the best way is to put
fixed value resistor in place of Volume, in this case 20 kΩ ganged volume was
replaced by 4 x 10 kΩ resistors which gives a setting somewhere in the middle.
—– As I couldn’t find the identical replacement, I put an equivalent
Ganged Volume ( they are for each Left and Right channel) instead.
The repair has done and it worked perfect. (don’t complain poor look and some
inconveniences = repair was for the function. As long as the sound is OK, it’s OK
—– to enjoy the quality of sound, out of Philips Amp and the Speaker, while pay
nothing — don’t ask too much. 😀 )
( After all, repair was also free = neither me paying any tuition fee, still I learned
quite amazing idea of Philips’ audio design = What a fun ! )
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Mono Hole – DD Pinhole Comparison
Another day, I demonstrated the effects of the Pinhole to a sceptic in a Park.
So, the Photo above is the reference shot by a Fish-eye lens.
Photo above are the images made by [Wide-angle Mono Pinhole] (Left)
and the Pinhole alone (= Wide-angle lens was removed) (Right)
And here, the Photos were made by [Concentric Double-density Pinhole]
with Wide-angle lens attached (Left) and without (Right)
A Fish-eye image of “Pink Forget-me-not” (I think) — note,
even Fish-eye lens has limited depth of field.
Left was [Wide-angle Mono (single) Pinhole] (Orange cast was caused
by a light-leak.) Right was [Wide-angle DD-Pinhole]
Left = Wide-angle Mono-Pinhole. Right = Pinhole alone and close to the flowers.
(Remember, Pinhole has no focus —– even no view-finder image = too dark.
Therefore all those photos were the blind-shots)
Left = Wide-angle DD-Pinhole.
Right = Pinhole alone and close to the flowers. (The line in the left side
was caused by an internal reflection.)
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At least, my friend was convinced that the effect was not by a digital
manipulation though still sceptic about the significance of the image.
That’s a matter of the taste Sir. 😀
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Daddy Long Legs
———————— HEALTH-WARNING = NOT suits for Squeamish person 🙂 ————————-
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Well, this is about a visitor here / Daddy-long-legs. 🙂
In principal, I don’t discriminate any life form —– though, in practice,
I’m not welcome any visitor here. (Before, I invited the person to come and
see my work here. Though, since I started this blog, I just tell the person
“Just look into my Blog and Youtube”. Yet still, insects are kept flying in and
I knew the Spiders must be somewhere —– though, I didn’t expect to see a
Daddy-long-legs in my Kitchen. = She hanged on the inside of a fruits bag.
But, how she came here — walk-up all the way, outside wall ?
Or born and had been living under the floor board ?
(Photo Left / F5.6 , 1/60, ISO 3200. Photo Right / with Flash, F16, 1/100, ISO 400
by Canon 100 mm Macro F 2.8, 5D Mk-III )
( Part-enlarged Image —– It is an incredibly designed piece of mechanism ! )
Well, —– not so pretty face to watch. 😀
Though, she might not wish to born as a Daddy-long-legs, and a Hindu person
may even say that she could be a woman before ! Who knows.
—– still, what so ever, she is an amazing creature !
(How she could sense and catch small insect ? — by eyes or detects vibrations ?)
(To see how she hunt other insect, I should watch her all through the night
though, I’ll do it one day in my next life. —– I guess, somebody must have done.
= Isn’t there any video clip “Hunting of Daddy-long-leg” in YouTube ? )
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View from Roof-top
Me and my friends went up to a roof-top of a building in Greenwich.
One of the friend brought up 800 mm mirror lens on Canon and me with the
same D-D Pinhole, the other with a compact camera and we took some pictures.
Though we didn’t stay long as it was a bit windy and chilly. Still, I could see a kind
of potential with Wide-angle Pinhole for the land-scape photography = weather
permitted, with something great lighting such as a sky burning sunset.
(Something like the paintings of Turner ! 🙂 )
I borrowed 800 mm lens and clicked few pictures.
In the Photo left is the top of the Canary Wharf (1.8 mile / 2.8 km), and in
the Right photo, the Victorian Tower of the House of Parliament and the
Westminster Abbey (5 miles / 8 km away).
And this is the top of so-called O2 / Millennium Dome (1.8 mile / 2.8 km away).
Photo left, the mast of the Cutty Sark and the Church tower.
The clock face in the right photo was a part enlargement.
(Not too bad quality for a £150 second-hand lens.)









































































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