500 mm Macro lens ?

The other day I tested an 800mm Mirror lens of which my friend just obtained.

In fact it was a gift from his Daughter.  Lens was for Canon DSLR though, funnily enough

he got no Canon SLR.  —— that’s why I was asked to test, whether for a sake of that lens,

is it worthwhile to buy a camera body.  🙂     These days, people seeing even a small compact

camera started to have extremely high zoom ratio, such as Panasonic’s  x60 zoom

(equiv’ 20 ~ 1200 mm)  they no longer “fear” long telephoto lens.

—– That lens was (amazingly !) good.     So, he is going to become a bird photographer.  🙂

I hope him to become an expert of  “800 mm” lens and capture a lots of bird photos.

As a matter of fact, I got a Mirror lens too, but not  800 mm, my one is  500 mm.

“Naturally”, not very often used though, it was a Tamron F8 Mirror lens = once dabbed

as the second best mirror lens among the 500 mm mirror lens after the Zeiss.  (mind you,

Zeiss Mirrotar 500 mm carries a price of  5 million yen —– but Tamron was 50,000 yen

—– I got it in second hand for 20,000 yen.  😉 )

Not just sharp, Tamron 500 mm was designed to produce good close-up image as well, 

hence its closest distance comes down to  1.7 m and able to take  x 1/3 close-up !

This is a clopped part of the photo. Depth of the field is so shallow still, not too bad isn’t it,  

considering it was nearly  2 m away.    (Can you imagine to look into the reflecting pattern

of batterfly’s eye from  2 m distance ! ) —– (Only when if we could manage extremely

critical focus under F8  darkness of view-finder ! ) 

( Fish-eye photo was an extra —– just for fun.  😉 )

Another trouble is, because of the angle of view is less than  5 degree = quite difficult

to know  “Where AM I watching ?”  especially, when the image was out of focus.  😀

As out of focus Bokhe become funny ring pattern —– you may hate, or some time

they looks more decorative. —– it’s a character.    It could be a good fun to play with !

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Color of Flash-light

As now, photography is open to anybody and bast majority of the camera user has no

interest to the technical aspects surrounding the photography, while expecting the

manufacturer provide everything what they needs perfect.  

Hence, they don’t even care whether it is DSLR or Phone-camera.  

[]

So, everybody believing flash-light is the flash-light and all same.   Though, it is not true

—– some are more blue.  Even a professional studio photographer may not noticed but

just believing “As long as they buy reputed studio flash, it is the industrial standard”.  

In certain extent, it is true.   The quality of the flash has been really improved. (and

became very cheap.)  😉

[]

The photo above, they are the flash-tube, most left came from Bowens. (are they still exists ?) 

Second is Balcar’s  —– (mind you this tube alone costed £200 !)   Third is for ring flash-light.

(This is the Ring-flash I made for the photos which was published in the Zoom Magazine.

= Ring Flash for Fish-eye Lens. —– Since, the subject was over-shadowed by the camera itself,

it was necessary to illuminate !    Still, the lens has 180 degree of view, flash has to be exactly

in the same plain of the lens-front. = If the flash was before the lens, it will be in the picture.  

If it was behind the lens, the shadow of the lens will appear in the picture.  😀 )

[]

Though, this flash-tube was very blue (about 6500 K) I needed to use a Kodak Color

Compensation Filter inside of flash. — Most of the flash produces  6000 K Color-temperature.

Though, the standard of the Printing Industry is 5500 K,  so that photo above, Bowens tube was

gold color tinted to warm-up the color a bit.  This slight difference makes the skin-tone better.

= So, you may try to tinker the flash-light, such as stick a cello-tape on the flash face and put a

red line of maker-ink (never draw an ink direct) —– it would make

the faces in a party looks more drunk.  😀

 

Slide Duplication / Digitization using Flash-light

They are the samples, which were Digitized on fluorescent light-box = I talked about before. 

But photos above were digitized using a TTL flash-light.

( They are in large size = click to enlarge and see the details (but ignore the dust ) 😉

It’s not too bad in highlight tone. ( in the shadow, some noises due to “Brighten-up” )

If anybody visited here twice, you may noticed that the photos are different from before.

—– I’ve changed them, in fact three times as I was not happy with the color of Dupe. 

What I wrote about [Home-made Light-box] —– as a Slide-viewer, it was correct though,

to use it for Duplication was wrong.   Color was far from ideal = in fact, dreadful. 😀

[]

I tried to tinker the color temperature etc. still not suticefied, and tried to use LED light

though,  fundamentally fluorescent light and White LED has the same characteristics.  

Whitish color of LED was emitted by the mixture of fluorescent compound, excited by

LED’s near UV light = same as the Fluorescent light tube.  Since it was produced by a mix

of BGR light, its light spectrum has the typical light-spike from its chemical, hence color is

never perfect.  –—- on the end, I came to the conclusion = it’s better to use a flash-light =

its Xenon discharge light which has a continuous light spectrum is much more natural.  

Unlike easily fooled human-eyes, an image sensor in a DSLR pick-up those

peaks and the spikes and produce wrong color which is harder to eliminate.    

 

To use a flash-light for Slide-duplication is not a complicated business.  

Just place a flash under the white perspex (may be 4″ / 10 cm away). —– I cut a 2″ (5 cm)

square hole in the center of 8″ high card-board box then put white perspex on top, and placed

a flash-light inside.  (of cause, flash is aiming to the cut-out hole straight.)

I put some layers of white tissue over the flash face to diffuse and reduce the light.  

I used Canon 430EX-II in the TTL mode but on -1/3 setting. (For High-contrast original, expose -1

and brighten up with after process might be better)  Flash and the Camera was connected by

an “Off camera cable“.  With this set-up, the exposure will be controlled in TTL though, to make

it a bit brighter or darker, it is easier to use a flash with manual setting (with minimum power

setting ) and adjust the exposure by changing F-aperture or ISO setting, as it can be done from

the camera side.  ( To change the setting on the back of flash is more awkward.)

While testing this, what I noticed interesting was that a dupe made by D800 with HDR seemes

not much different from a dupe made by C’ 5D Mk-III with flash-light (only one exposure) of

which the shadow was brighten-up by common photo program. = Canon’s image sensor and

their processing engine seemed to have wider Dynamic Range in the first place than Nikon.

(To see the comparison in this post.)  To be fair, this matter needs to have more critical test.

[]

Gauzed Image or in a Reflection — My Answer to Elena’s Paintings

When I saw the paintings in a fantastically talented artist Elena Caravera’s blog, of which

a girl’s portrait was overlaid by gauze like white, I found there is somewhat similar psyche

exists in the mind of the painter  = in order to give a psychological depth, intentionally cover

the painting and make the image fuzzier.

[] 

Strangely you may think, I’ve been creating “Not sharp” photos intentionally over 40 years.  

Since I started my photography taking the photos of Nature, and the close-up photography had

become my part-time job when I was in my Uni’,  to make clear sharp image became a norm

and a routine, then I started to go further departing from cosy home of normal photography.    

In our generation, some photographers gone to the rough-grain image such as Moriyama

or the subject the society despised such as Araki, etc.  but I was rather enchanted by the

ghost of the image, which we can’t see, or hidden behind of fuzzy or double images. 

Since then, I tried Soft-focus lens, Improvised, modified lens, Lens from an old folding camera on

a handmade camera etc. to see fuzzy image or the image on a reflective surface —– see through

a distorted glass material etc. —– I got thousand of this kind of photos.

[]

Photography is a COPY of the subject.  = The more realistic and the closer to the reality of the

subject, it become mere substitute of the real thing.  It’s better to see the real thing if possible.  

But when its reality was lost, its image started to have its own mind.  Whether it is in fact my

own mind or the curse to the image, it start to assert its own voice = the photo became

independent of the subject.  —– or, that’s what I’m thinking.  😉  

Though, I don’t know, what Elena is thinking.  😀

[]

Slide Dupe by D810 HDR

Since many of my old films came out of boxes, I tried to make some digital dupe of them.

The main reason why I bought canon 5D Mk-III was that it has HDR (High Dynamic Range) built-in. —– (Though, it turned out to be unusable unless it was processed in PC with their DPP program. ( PS : It was the result of first test, hence I’ve given-up to use though, I tested again further and I found that it works in the most of the subjects = so, fair to say it was NOT unusable = some of the lighting condition and a combination of the lens may show unsatisfactory result. )   In contrast, Nikon D810 seems to be a bit subtle but it is quite useful as the camera alone gives processed image on the spot.  (Even hand-held shot, if the exposure difference was within 3 stops, it works reasonably — not perfect though, don’t ask too much = effect is somewhat similar to put a big reflector to brighten-up the shadow.)

———- (Photo Left :  Straight Copy.      Photo Centre :  with HDR.      Photo Right :  HDR and + 1/3

———- Which one to choose would be depending on one’s tastes ? )    ( St. German-de-Pre, in Paris)

So, the sample photos here are the Digital Copy of the Film slide.  The Originals were the Kodachrome ISO 25 film.  (Almost  40 years old.)

Copy Camera was Nikon D810 with Micro Nikkor 50 mm, and using their HDR setting.

What ever a way when Copy was made,  whether by film or Digital means,  the range of the tones would be lost and became higher contrast. 

Photo Left : This was a straight Copy and the Right : was with HDR.

(Original Dynamic Range of the Kodachrome was squeezed into narrower range, hence lost its original sparkle = photo looks dull now) —– Mind you, the  original Kodachrome 25 has the detailed tone in its highlight and in the shadow as well. = Otherwise, where the details on Music Score came from. —– (Camera couldn’t create, if no image was there.)  😀

—– In this extent, the resolution of Digital Camera may surpassed the resolution of such as  Ektachrome film though, the Dynamic Range of the Kodachrome yet. 

= With the use of HDR, they may just come closer to emulate the film.

 []

(This Dupe was made using Flash-light and Canon 5D Mk-III without HDR, and the photo was brighten-up a bit on after tinkering process.  —– not much difference to above HDR photo.)

[]  There is a funny misunderstanding among the people  —– People has been fooled by a word / technical term such as “Number of BIT” = To express color depth by 8 bit or 12 bit etc. those number is an indicator of “How finely divided” (Say, 2 bit mean Black or White.  8 bit mean, the staircase of darkest Black to brightest White was divided into 256 steps, that all).  

From darkest to the brightest, how many times (in exponential scale) brighter is the Dynamic Range or in old term, Latitude. 

The B/W film was known to have a Latitude of 7 stops  ( = in metaphor, a grey become Black on F 22 but if the aperture was open 7 stops to F 2 the same grey will be captured as white.)  And the Color films and TV Cameras got only 5 stops of Latitude. (That’s why TV needs many lights.)

Even after the digital revolution, the situation hasn’t been changed much, since there is NO such things like a digital sensor = the sensors and the display units are all in analogue. !   All due to the limitation of those electronic components.  

(You know, the darkest black you can see on the screen is the darkness when you switch off your device. —– Is it dark ?  😀 )

(Usable linear part of their character is limited by such as quantum mechanics. ) 

[]The most of ignorant photographer who “worship” Raw File is believing it has more though, it is like a 1′ scale and a 30 cm scale.  Metric scale looks divided finer than inch scale, Raw is a bit finer that’s all.  Lossless JPEG compression wouldn’t make so much difference to Raw.

Raw doesn’t have extended Black outside of  30 cm or White on top.  

The total length is still the same.

[]The wide coverage of  the ISO setting in a DSLR was achieved by the higher amplification of the output from the censor = if the sensor was designed for low-light,  the highest output under bright light was also lower.  = Because, the sensor has almost the same latitude or dynamic range.  I wonder, if any DSLR which has 2 stops more Dynamic Range come to the market ?  

(Of cause with one exposure.   I don’t mind if it got digital signal process built-in for this purpose.  —– Or are they expecting the people resort with after process ? —– ( PS : Some information educated me.  Now such as Panasonic’s Lumix camera and their image processing program is even correcting the aberration of the lens = It is really the electronic company’s answer to the optical problem = not by the optical design but by their own trick = electronics !  )

[]

Hand-held Photo for 1 second

This photo was taken in a church in Schwetzingen, Germany when I visited and listened  

hundred of Pipe Organ in Europe.

As far as I remember, this photo must be the best usable Hand-held photo (which got an

evidence), in my entire life.  —– how can I say this ?  =  The film was Kodachrome  ISO 25.  

The lighting condition like this = if it was ISO 400,  1/30 or 1/15,  F2.8.  —– just count on

your fingers, it became  1/2 ~ 1 second for ISO 25 Film.  But the lens was Pentax  17 mm F4.  

It was in deed 1 second F4.    Please look into the mirror above the organ key-board. =

The image in the mirror was me holding camera = no tripod.

Still you can read (well more or less) the music score.

Not too bad isn’t it for Hand-held for one second ?

—– (Knack to hold the camera is,   1) Close armpit and put elbow solidly on the chest.

2) Don’t push button with pointing finger alone but do it as if you are squeezing all the

finger inward.    3) Relax, never been tensioned.  Just hold breath and release the shutter.)

(Because of an Organist who is facing the key-board, hence couldn’t see the progress of a 

mass service behind of him, it is necessary to have a mirror there to see the timing.)  

—– Well, it was a long time ago,  when I had a muscle.   😀

[]

Home-made Light-box

Whether you believe or not, this is my Light-box.   It was made out of a Japanese cookie’s

wooden box.   Into the box, I put  a small fluorescent tube and a mirror board under the tube,

then covered with white perspex = So, it became a Light-box.  (So easy and cheap.  😉 )

In ostentatious principle, the light-box should have a Print organisation’s standard light souse,

5000K etc. though in practice non of the so-called Natural Light fluorescent tube got perfect

color balance anyway.   And all the light-box in the market were too big and heavy.  

I wanted to make it small and easy to carry, since non of my client has got one as they are just a

business office, not like an editorial room of a publisher.  When I deliver the photos of the

assignment and to show the transparency to them,  I needed to bring my own Light-box.

[]

Of course, a Light-box “was” an essential tool to a “Film” photographer, but not only that, it

is a very useful tool in general.  When I needed to analyse electronic circuit, I used a reverse

print of circuit track and a photo of component side, two prints together on the Light-box to

see through the connection.  😉 —–  And this time, I used it to copy the old transparencies.

Those photos were taken at the Spring Festival in Seville in Spain.  (1974 ! )

On the duped 35 mm Kodachrome ISO 25 (my regular film then) apparently lost some tone

and I may need to refine more though, still it is usable for a net-communication.

—– PS :  (Usable but, since I was not happy with its color, I made another copy using

flash-light instead of this fluorescent light.  😀 —– I’ll write about it soon. )

I can not stop imagining, these young  Guapa Chiquita now must be the good granny.   😀

They must have had a joyful life.  (Good dancer has less worry.  😀 )

———- (This is the Pipe Organ of the St. Michel Church in Hamburg, Germany.  

———- Taken by Pentax 17 mm Fish-eye lens on Nikon FE ) 

For some high contrast image, even a dupe on Home-made cheap Light-box, using 5D Mk-III

with 100 mm EF Macro is not too bad.

 I’m really happy, after almost 40 years Kodachrome retained its original color.  

(you may say “So, What”  😀 )

[]

Macro Flash-light / Small Flash on Goose-neck

This must be a “You got to be joking” kind of funny, cheap adaptation of a flash for Macro

photography. —– And I would say “Why not” 😀

Since, most of my existing flashes, except Canon 430EX-II are not compatible for the latest DSLR

to give TTL flash control, I needed to buy one for Macro-flash modification which I described

it in a former post.

[]

The flash I found second-hand was 270EX-II, which is using only two batteries hence pretty small and

light enough to mount on top of a Goose-neck, instead to have internal modification I did before.

Decisive fact was that I already have [off the camera flash cable] made by Sunpak more than

20 years ago which was similar to the German SCA300 adapter system used by Metz, Agfa etc.

Sunpak tried to make the adapter for all the cameras which has been started to have new function, not

only ready-light, TTL flash control but even for focus-light for AF which was newly introduced AF camera.

Because of the Camera design was keep changing while adding new function, it was a hard task to

keep-up. —– On the end Sunpak became out of breath and bankrupted.

—– so, on that time lots of Sunpak products became obsolete and sold in a give-away price.

Once, Sunpak was a dominant force in the flash-light market with very innovative design and

versatile system such as the interchangeable head system with Telephoto head, Infra-red head,

Bare-tube head etc. not mention they produced very powerful model as well.

So, when I saw a box-full of their [Flash Extension Cable] in a camera shop, I bought all of them at once,

more than 20 cables for every type of cameras. —– Flash shoe is an awkward component to make

ourselves,  (still, I worked to make and modify, such as adding one more TTL contact to Pentax type to

make it Nikon type etc.  🙂 )  therefore, it’s better to keep enough supply of many types in hand,

and it’s got very useful coiled cable as well..

[]

DSLR camera manufacturer is selling their [Flash Extention Cable] and all of their Female connector has

only 1/4” Tripod screw. = Once flash was put on the cable, it has to be mounted on a stand, otherwise it

has to be held by a hand.      In contrast, the best thing of the Sunpak Extension Cable is, male and

female can be coupled, in other words flash can be perched on top of the camera, only 45mm

higher position.   So that, it can be changed Flash on the camera to hand-lighting just by pressing release

button (which can be locked as well)  hence, as far as I know, this is the best designed [FlashE xtention

Cable] in the history and the materials and the construction are also very good.

———– (Photo above:  1″ Aluminium C-channel is the best to make many structures.  

———–  And  3/4 ” Square Pipe will just fit inside, hence they can make best coupling system !  

———–  And they could be easily cut by hand tools, though it’s a very tedious work.  🙂 )

So, my modification was just Epoxy glued  female connector on top of a goose-neck and made a small

piece of aluminium channel to connect the goose-neck to the camera bracket which is the in-hose

standard to connect any of my flash-light systems to the cameras.

—– To use the 270EX-II flash as a Macro-flash, thanks to the flexibility of goose-neck, flash can be

positioned (more or less) where ever desired, with or without bouncing diffuser.

—– following photos are the Test sample of each lighting.  (Focus and  F  were Fixed)

————- (The Lens was CanonEF Macro 100mm F2.8 with home made “Ultra Proxer” / F2.8)

————- (This last set of sample photo was using   F11 —— slight difference of lighting changes

————- the character of the subject ! —– See the difference on enlarged images ) 

(And the sample photos in the field will be followed )  😉

—– those photos are taken in my room (I’m still busy dealing with boxes  🙂 ) of a small visitor,

Beetle, head to tale  6mm or 1/4″ big, using Ultra Proxer on Canon EF 100mm Macro

with 270EX-II flash and extension cable. 

 

(

(([]

——— (Photo Left : 100mm Macro at F16 + Ultra Proxer, 270EX Flash with Diffuser — taken x2 size.

——— Photo Right : same setting but at F 2.8 ) 

 

Close-up Lens on EF-Macro Lens

Well, those top two photos were taken by Canon EF Macro 100mm F2.8 Lens alone.

This Macro lens has internal focus system and it will be focused down to the life-size.

 For general macro work,  it is convenient to use though, for me,  life-size is often just

not close enough.  So that I specially made additional Proxer / Close-up lens my self.

As I detailed in the post, By using the Proxer, the Lens can close to  x2 size, and

in addition, it creates almost phenomenal out-of-focus Bokhe.

The Bokhe created by this additional lens looks almost like Air-blush Graphic work.

Still, since this Proxer was made out of the front element of a Zoom Lens, it got double

lens Achromatic construction, no Chromatic aberration was appeared and the focused

image is quite sharp, corner to corner, even when the lens aperture was fully open.

All those photos, except top two,  F-aperture was set to F2.8 and the Camera was

set to AV mode.  Auto focus does work though, as the nature of this kind of

close-up work, I used manual focus.   

[]

Ultra heavy Proxer — Close-up Lens from TV Zoom

Those photos were taken by Zeiss 85 mm F 1.4 lens, with my handmade Proxer was

attached to it.  The Proxer = Close-up lens was  in fact, a front element of a Canon

TV-Zoom lens which I’ve cannibalized from a broken lens.  (hence cost nothing  😉 )

As the original lens was a very expensive TV  lens,  it has a very high-quality

Achromatic lens.  ( Even ED glass may have used in its construction.)

In most of the case, it is not very difficult to disassemble the lens —– in this case,

after unscrew 14 small screws, the front Lens was disengaged from its focusing helicoid.

—– then it was glued to a 67 mm filter ring.  (filter glass was removed beforehand)  

Front-element of this lens works as a close-up lens, hence with 85 mm lens it act like

a life-size Macro converter.  —– And with large 1.4 F-aperture, it gives very shallow

depth of field. (and very big Bokhe ! — Still, the focused image itself is quite sharp ! )

——(Metric ruler was shot in 45 degree.  Left: F1.4  /  Center: F2.8  /   Right: F5.6)

Though, this 3 cm thick solid glass in a solid metal helicoid is really heavy, almost

the same weight of 85 mm lens itself.   😀 

(The photo above :  Left was taken F1.4,    but Right photo was F5.6 )

(In those photos, look at how the single hair of fluff was captured on F 1.4  

= Please click and enlarge twice)

As you can see from the photos above, off-focused Bokhe is a bit too much for

most of the people’s taste though, that is what I’ve been after.

(This effect couldn’t be mimicked by PS ! ) 

—– to get this effect, I tried many Soft Focus lenses, Filters, Pinhole Photo,

Double-density Pinhole, even Double Focus in Double exposure.  

But there is no sharp core in a Pinhole photo, and the Double exposure has

the trouble to keep the subject exactly in the same position etc etc.  

= After many many years of attempt,  now I think, I got what I wanted.  

Only a problem is, this TV-Zoom Proxer gives only life-size close-up image.  

May be I need to find another lens which got longer focal length.  😀

Still, it’s a start.

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