Sony Extension Ring
To prevent the close contact, the postman left a percel from China outside of my door while shouting Your Post = I got an Extension Ring delivered today.
To have an even closer shot, the Extension Ring is a pretty handy device. You may find such ring for Sony (10 mm and 16 mm set) as cheap as £15 on eBay. And depend on the lens used, you may get quite a close-up photo (the shorter the focal length the closer you get —– though, depend on the lens, the closed image might be pretty bad unless you stopped down the F-aperture a lot.
With such a cheap price, I bought 3 or 4 set of Sony Extension Ring. Since, I discovered, not all of them are good. Some loose bayonet make the joint wobbly (only 0.1 mm wider gap of bayonet makes it loose) —– even worse, some of them stack solid (only 0.1 mm longer bayonet claw can block them disengage) = To separate the camera body — Ring — Lens, I needed to hack-saw the ring and with sheer force, I ripped off the Lens ! (Photo above right two = used be the DG-NEX Extension 16 mm ring = the left over after a hack-saw job.) The trouble is, you discover the trouble only when you HAVE engaged the Lens – Ring – Body. = Then you realised that you got the trouble of stacked bayonet. —– Because of the internal mechanism of the bayonet, we can’t see which part was blocking the ring to rotate back.
This IS what made in China meant. On the eBay, you may see many “Sony Extension Ring” with different prices —– Give close looks = The ring came from only few original manufacturer, then, different vender selling it in a different price. = Expensive doesn’t mean good quality. Manufacturer seemed to sold off bad lot for give-away price then, corrupt vender sold them in the net, expecting most of the customer never bothered to complain for £15. —– So, on the end I bought plastic one = Easier to hack-saw and when I needed, easy to brake-off before the lens or the camera body brake. (Sound dreadful isn’t it)
So, when you are lucky to have good working Ring you may get quite nice close-up photo —– especially with such A7R-4 / 62MP image sensor, we can clop the image for even higher magnification scale. (Otherwise, such as x5 ~ x10 magnification needs to have quite a hard work — and a specialised expencive Macro Lens.)
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Brutal Nature = or is it just a Nature ?
They are the photos of a Dandelion seed magnified x16 times (in length, on 36×24 screen)
the Lens used was the one I’ve hand-made to take May Fly Egg before (click the Link here).
———— (This photo is a comparison, taken by Pentax 20mm F4 Lens, in Revers with Extension Ring,
———— but to make a comparison, photo was trimmed to the same size = x16, like the photo above.
———— As it was able to stop down to F8 , Depth of Field was much deeper than Microscope Lens )
As often the case, it looks pretty and fragile though, nature do have sharp claw and poison.
= Disneylized romanticized look is just a thin veneer ( still, it would inspire a child’s dream
” Like a Dandelion seed, fly away in a wind and have a bloom somewhere in a new world” =
how romantic ! ) though = they also live in the same, or even harsher Samsara.
(And they are really the Nemesis of a gardener 😀 ) —– Through the evolution, Dandelion
seed must have adopted this looks brutal barbed armor, against eaten by a bird.
And this photo was taken by Canon EF Macro F2.8 , at F2.8, magnification was x1.
And in comparison, this photo was taken by a lens, once regarded to be one of the best
Macro Lens, Tamron SP 90mm F2.5 at F2.5 with Extension Rings, magnification was x1.5.
( Because of this lens has some softness at F2.5, quite few photographer loved it for female
portrait, but I used this lens only for closeup work ) —– all those shots here are for the tests
of shallow focus and the soft image at the fully opened F aperture, since when I found an
Olympus 50mm Macro F2 lens has phenomenal off-focus “Boke” = I wanted to investigate.
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In photography, there are two opposite approaches to emphasize the subject = one is using
wide angle lens and close to the subject, hence make the subject over-sized. 😀
The another is, to use telephoto lens, and focus only to the subject. —– even though I like to
do [Man-watching] in distance, when I come to take photo, I don’t like sneak view.
I like to have face to face, and communicate with the subject, or to commit to the situation.
( This is the attitude of [Engagement] of the Existentialism and the Mahayana Buddhism. )
—– As I started my photography taking photos of plants, insects = use smaller F-aperture
to get sharper image, deep depth of field was the norm. = I was not a man to use the lens with
its F-aperture fully opened —– unless the situation demand, under a dim light. 🙂 )
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In the life, nothing is simple but having many contradicting facets. Behind of loving care
of Tiger mother to her cab, there are misery of a Deer family. Even a fluffy dandelion seed
having such fierce face which I didn’t know until I gave a very close look.
We tend to makeup a convenient story from just one facet, in most of the case with our
ignorance, or even worse, with a sake of convenience to make the story nice and sweet.
So that, such as in the Eightfold Right Path of Buddhism = to make Right Speech needs to
have right knowledge and the understanding. It’s quite a tall order isn’t it.
And with a crèche, we casually use an expression how gorgeous the spring blossoms are,
or glorious golden color of autumn trees and so on, but nature may not be there to
please mankind = Flower was there, waiting the insects, and we just happen to be there.
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To interpret the Nature in our sake is just our Ego, and romanticize it would be a delusion.
Who said, Mankind conquer the Nature ? — We only found a bit of way to tamper it, that all.
They may not willfully Brutal against us, as they have no self or Ego, but the Mechanism.
This Mechanism contain us as its part, but they operates without recognize us.
—– and this System is what the Nature mean. And this is the Dharma in Buddhism.
To see it beautiful or brutal is in our eyes, in fact it’s all in our Mind. Nature is just there.
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