Meadow Flower taken by Homemade Lens
This flower meadow was suddenly created in the past 2 weeks.
It was a green patch between the buildings of the council housing estate.
Two weeks ago, somebody made a bald patch on the grass, — then after few
rains, it became a flower meadow. = Packaged Instant Meadow !
From this meadow, my regular diet of fuzzy photo was made — but this time,
I used a Home made lens which is a Retro-focus type, 2 element lens.
Sound a bit ostentatious though, in short, as the main convex lens had a little
short focal length, I put another concave lens to extend its back-focus, hence
it became a Retro-focus type. —– (Main convex lens came from a toy and the
Front concave lens was my broken short-eye-sighted glass.)
This photo was a comparison. = taken by the same
Wide-angle Double-density Pinhole lens, I’ve been using.
Note : Regardless the distance, Pinhole never posses a core of sharp image.
And rather blueish color cast, because not much glass lens there to block
the UV. —– (It’s a Pinhole ! )
For this Double-element lens, I improvised an “inter-changeable F-aperture” to
reduce a halation by stopping down. (Sound heavy “F-aperture” though, it was
just a hole on a black tape to stick on the back of the lens. 🙂 )
——– (Photo above : The clear samples of Iris (F-aperture) Effect =
——– Left = Fully open / 10 mm. Center Photo = 6 mm. Right Photo = 3 mm.
Despite the utter humble origin, amazingly this lens has certain image quality.
And those pink flower having rain drops on it —– just able to see !
So, the image was Soft and Fuzzy, because of too much Coma- aberration
still, they are retaining certain sharp image in the center. 😀
This is a part enlargement of the photo above —– Not too bad. I like it.
(Can you see the water droplets on the petals ! )
And able to give enough fun !
I have no idea, what those flowers called.
Still, I like this glowing color ! — not the Sun, but like a kindling fire in the ash.
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PS : May be much of your annoyance, this is it ! = THE home made Lens.
Photo Right shows “F-aperture” ! = Hole in a Black sticky tape. 😀
= To clack a nut of creativity, it doesn’t need to be ostentatiously heavy
Lens, even though the Camera happen to be expensive.
= Typical case was, just smear the Lens with sliver to soften the image.
Heavy pretense blocks the flow of the idea. = Anything can be done.
Matter is Just Do and discover a FUN.
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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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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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Impressionists Flower Photo — like oil paintings/DD Pinhole Images
These are the Photos of [Wide-angle Double-density Pinhole] 😀
Just a pretty pretty sweet pictures. Nothing else. (Don’t ask too much.)
Now a day, sharp pan-focused images are everywhere, especially “Phone-Camera”
become even more popular. (The smaller the camera, image become more
Pan-Focused) —– Though, our eyes are not Pan-Focus = Brain only sees where and
what the person wants to see and feel irritated to see Pan-Focus image —-> Thence,
Google issued a program for Android called [Google Camera (Google Play)] which
makes an image “Selectively Focused”.
I can make a photo, well Pan-Focused if I need but other than that I’m not much
fond of sharp image = rather like an ambiguous image, double image etc. 🙂
So, I’ve spent many years to seek and try all sorts of “Soft Focus” techniques. = This
Double-Density Pinhole with additional Concave Lens, which made it Wide-angle,
is the best so far. Not all-rounder yet it produces pretty jokey image. I like it. 😀
I don’t think even a Botanist wants to see the details of common garden flower.
What we need is just a coloful flowery air !
It seems what I need to add here is, a distant back ground
and the blue sky over it and the Victorian Ladies with umbrella !
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Impressionist’s Flower Photo (without Pink)
Those photos were taken on the same day of the Shooting Party.
Being as an impressionist (for one-day 🙂 ) = no botanical
observation or comment.
Till here all the photos above were taken using a Fun Camera’s Lens.
And those last three photos were taken by the Wide-angle
Double-density Pinhole on Canon 5D Mk-III.
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Pink — Impressionist’s Pink !
In early spring when the sun is not strong, the flower has to rely on its
hi-visibility color = yellow to appeal to the insects.
But when the spring deepen with increasing sun light, flowers who got other
tactics such as sweet scent doesn’t need to rely on its visibility, hence free to
pleasure with another color. —– Then the Pink become in fashion. 😀
Though, I’m not knowledgeable enough whether those Pink has any effect to the
human psychology. Why a young lady saw something naughty blushs pink (red ?)
or a glass or two drinks makes the cheek pink ?
My friends has been rather wondering, or even suspicious about my eyes or
mental condition if those fuzzy images were the symptom of poor eyesight or
a kind of drowsiness for some kind of intoxication. 😀
Surely, drunken wouldn’t say “I’m drunk” and I think I can focus if I need.
Those photos above were taken by the lens from Kodak Fun Camera on 5D.
But this photo above were taken by the Wide-angle double-density Pinhole.
And this one is a normal photo as a reference
—– whether you feel boring or sigh of relief (at home). 😀
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Focus-shifting Muliti-exposure Photo
Don’t worry, You don’t need to clean your specs.
It’s not your eyes. —– Photo IS fuzzy and it’s meant to be. 😉
——————- (Hey, this is a very very pretty girly picture ! = Click it and see enlarged. 😉 )
These photos were taken by a technique, Multi-Exposure with Focus-Shift.
—– In order to have an effect = a core image with out-of-focus halo around, I did
it before while camera was set on a tripod. But this time I did it by hand-held.
I guess, it could be done by Hacking into camera’s operational program and
over-drive the AF motor while the camera is giving the multiple exposure.
(Single exposure is too short to manually shift the focus. —– In the old days of
wooden camera, the old masters used the same technique to shift a focus while
giving a long exposure. And the Minolta Alpha 7000 had this effect in their
Portrait Mode to create softer image. ) —– But, I found it was not
difficult to move the focus ring during the few multiple exposure. = Just Do it,
and if not successful try it again —– success rate is somewhat one in four. 😀
(not only how far focus to be shifted, but a trouble of camera-shake is also
a spoiling factor. = If you are a bad shooter, shoot a lot — one might hit a target !)
————- (This must be a puzzling photo = where it was focused ? 😉 )
Keen reader of this blog might be realized that the post in these days were all connected
behind the scene = how camera can be steadily hand-held etc. (without having enough
practice and gained a confidence, this kind of photography would be only a waste of time.
Creativity does not occur out of blue, it needs to have a base, or incubating ground.
A practical adjustment or improvisation may suddenly conceived on the spot but
it is a minute part of the operation.
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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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Photos in Tone
Nature has its own tone, under rather subdued light, it’s shows subtle shade.
Shape and its 3D structure may not as clear like the image under the direct light though,
we are not necessary need to see such detail.
Subtle shade seemed to show more of what they are as it is.
Just see and appreciate as they are, without imposing my view is in fact less tiring and
able to relax. After all, the photos here are not for any scientific or reference purpose.
They are just what they are today as I’m here on this moment.
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