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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Cicada ?
I don’t think we can see a cicada in this country —– other than a its tiny cousin called Froghopper. —– still, I never seen such highly decorated costume on them ! = I was very impressed !
While tidying up the desk I found a small dead insect among the dust. For most of the eyes, this small bit may not have any significant meaning though, I came from the country where the noise of cicada singing fill the air of sommer all the time (even in Tokyo area) I wouldn’t miss “I know you well” —– the insect was not exactry a cicada but a kind of froghopper. Still, they got the typical same shape.
So, the 25 mm 110 Instamatic Camera lens, reverse mounted to the can which can give about x6 magnification = the result wasn’t too bad for a cost nothing junk —– (may be I should give a helicoid focus on top for a ease of focusing.)
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Fuzzy Macro for flower
They are the photos made by a homemade lens called NZ-B = It’s a very peculiar lens, = utterly fuzzy though in the certain condition, strangely it shows quite sharp image.
This one may seemed to be taken by any ordinary macro lens though, with a much of amazement, even an annoyance, it was done by the same NZ-B lens on Nikon Z7, AV mode.
In certain extent, this lens would work just like a fuzzy 40 mm F2 lens.
Still, under close look, the image has quite a detail.
Don’t aske me why I didn’t come here a week ago. —– It’s happened as it happened. (That is what the life is.)
When it was far fore-focused, the image became like this = I like this. I think, no other lens ever made the image like this bokeh. And the bokeh image like this only exists photographically = never in the real world.
Hind-focused (photo left) = lens was sunk beyond the infinity position / Focused (middle) / Fore-focused (photo right) = lens helicoid was fully extended = like for a close-up shot.
Quite exotic flower — I have no idea who she is.
Very impressive though, I never seen her anywhere else. — (Is it a kind of Thunbergia ?)
But this one is very common, yet I love this painting like image. (It seemed that the loss of tonal dynamic range was not caused by the softness of the lens but by the brightness adjustment of Picasa and a very bright color = red.)
Still, the same lens can produce prosaically clean photography-like image as well.
The photographer is believing that they are the user of “Photography” though, in reality, the provider of the Photography (= camera maker, photo journalism etc) is using photographer to keep and run the industry and the idea. So that, “Photographer” was made to believe a type of photography which was provided and such stereotypical style “IS” only the photography.
= The belief IS “Photography is to make a faithful copy of the subject” while blindly believing that his own eyes is seeing the true face of the subject. —– In reality, no such certainty ever existed.
And rather fragile looking Scabious —– the lens showed peculiar DOF and the size of back bokeh is gorgeous.
(But have you ever seen such bokeh image in nature ? —– they exists only in the photographic image = they are not real neither your eyes are telling the truth —– So, how can you tell that the photography IS the faithful copy of the real, without knowing your own eyes could not tell what is real.) 😀
(For example, we are not seeing square building, since we got fisheye vision as our eyes are round ball, so that, our brain is reconstructing the image following the stereotype that the building is straight = therefore, the picture of the building has to be square ! —– You see what I mean.)
——- ! ? ? ?
Here a kind of anemone ? —– anyway, the matter is the image. (If you can make a soft image like this using PS I would like to see it !)
I’m not familiar with this flower —– pretty impressive, and it looks even cannivorous. I wouldn’t be surprised if I see the dead bodies of insects laying inside, half digested. (Do you know what IS the truth.)
And suddenly here rather humble looking flower = the color of blue jeans, Indigo came from this plant. (or larger sister of her)
(If I could stop down, the image could have deeper depth of field though this lens has no iris = always fully open F2. But considering the condition as it was fully open F2, the quality of close focused image was amazingly high !)
Then, funny looking chap = the nuts of ceder tree, not a Pokemon still, he looks very very happy today !
The world seems to be pretty peaceful.
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Hibiscus
When you hear the name Hibiscus, you may imagine a red flower in a travel brochure of tropical island. Yet still, a kind of flowers belong to Hibiscus group = in the Malvaceae family is amazingly common and flowering everywhere.
This is a Hollyhocks. (seems to be Althaea rosea)
—– incidentally, this plant is a sister of Marshmallow (Yes, that soft white sweets) = the sweets used to be made using a sap from the roots of the Marshmallow.
And this one seems Hibiscus synacus.
But this one seems to be a very different garden valiety though, still pretty like a Hibiscus.
And you may remember this small flower in a grass patch, like a weed desperately clinging to the ground. Still, this one belongs to the Hibiscus family.
It’s somewhat interesting to think about that what sort of the fate or history pushed this plant to cling and survived on a rather poor dry ground ? —– Was that only a niche she found ? (We all knows, life is hard — she must be a rather lucky one, as she has achieved to make a flower at least !) —– by the way, did you know that the Hibiscus plant is Cannivorous = in the night, their stigma catch and strangulates a small insct and suck their body fluid out. = That’s what I heard, but not know the truth.
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Scarlet Pimpernel (’19)
I might have put as many posts of Scarlet Pinpernel after Cherry flowers. = I got a soft spot to this flower since I was very young. Easy reading villain’s novels kind is quite popular among the Japanese young boys (along side the robot comics) so, they are from Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Rupin to even Alexander Duma or Scarlet Pinpernel. Still, Until I came to the west, I never seen this flower. —– So, the first sudden encounter was rather shock to me, especially it was the most unexpected kind of the place like an unassumed corner of the grass patch.
The photos here, the left was taken by a homemade, so-called Yashica-Macro and the right was by NZ-B lens.
Scarlet Pinpernel is a strang flower. Even if I got their seeds (very tiny) they never germinates from its seeds. Neither they came out the same place next year. —– How they were planted there = who put the seeds there is totally in a mystery ?
And they are very sensitive to the weather / humedity = when it was hot and dry, they close their flowers. = to see, fully open flowers, you got to see them on the morning.
The size of this flower is about 7 mm, in other words, to take picture of this flower filling a ful-frame needs to have a magnification of x3~x5. The photo above, left was the homemade lens called NZ-B, covering infinity to x0.6 on the Nikon Z7 body. And the right was called Yashica-Macro, originated from a broken Yashica-Kyocera compact camera, (the lens barrel and a part of the lens were used) having a magnification of about x3. (The draw back of those homemade lens is, they can be used as a manual focus lens though, they don’t have iris = always fully open. = focused point is very shallow. —– don’t worry, I got number of ordinally macro lens as well. 😀 )
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End of the season
別にこのブログは楽しいオハナシばかりを伝える義務も無いのだが、それにしても九月が全て文句たらたらに終始しているのもひどい。とはいうものの遊びに行って浮かれたと言うような写真が在る訳でも無い。ーーーそれではとカメラのメモリ一を見るとしばらく前にサヨナラの埃拶に来た（らしい）友人の写真が出てきた。
(Photo left here was taken by the Mag lens, and the right was taken by rather normal Sony 30mm Macro F3.5 on A7R camera — I can agree, it’s better to have macro photo in a sharp image. 😀 )
(So, this photo is the proper one = taken by Canon EF 100mm Macro F2.8 with Achromatic Proxer Lens —– since the Moth was outside of a double grazed window, a longer focal lens can see the subject more straight (not in acute angle like 30mm lens) the image would be sharper.)
My blog doesn’t have an obligation to show only positive image though, seeing only the collection of complaint text on September was too bad. So, at least, I show you the image of a friend who apparently came to my window to say a goodby. 🙂
(And this was the morning sky in this morning at 5:30 by the Omni-focus toy lens on A7R camera) —– And I can agree a point that we can do a lots in a trivial corner of the life, like in the photography, not such as to fly away to the space. That’s what I learned. 😀
.————–
Rice Beetle
This is the Rice Beetle I found in the Italian rice after more than 60 years lapse of time. When I was a child, we were told to pick up and remove the rice beetle from the rice, before the mother cook it. So, we spread the rice on a news paper and corm it to sort out the beetles. It was the norm then that the rice was infested by the small beetles, elephant rice beetles.
I don’t remember exactly when its became we no longer needed to look for the insects. Anyhow, when the Co-op rice producer started to fumigate the rice with insecticide gas, the beetles were disappeared from the rice.
Many years ago, when I demonstrated the Japanese cooking to my friend’s family, while seeing me washing the rice, a daughter of the family shouted “Hey mum, he is washing the rice” —– it seemed, that the family has been eating the rice without washing. Then the Mum started to preach me that the goodness of the rice is in its brown skin and the bran, therefore if we wash the rice, we will lose its remaining goodness etc. So, I told them the story that there used be a lots of insects in a pack of rice and the reason why they disappeared was because the insecticide fumigation. To wash off its remaining chemical is far more acute problem than a bit of nutrition.
To take a photo of this tiny insect, I needed to use x5 magnification. (Look at its magnified details, I noticed that this carcass got only two pair of legs = its mean the chest and the head was missing. ) Among my homemade macro lenses, I chose to use the Instamatic Macro and the LED illumination. Still, it was always the case, improvised Hi-magnification macro is very awkward ( = x5 magnification means the image is 1/25 dark, needs minute minute focus, sensitive to the shake 5 times more etc) — nevertheless it was a fun, especially, this was the record of the very rare encounter = I met this old friend again after 60 years absence. I was really grad to see that they ARE also surviving somewhere on the earth.
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EFS Junk Macro for Scarlet Pimpernel
This Scarlet Pimpernel photo was taken by a broken Canon
EFS 18~55mm lens. How it was made broken, I don’t know, neither
the shop staff who gave it to me did. Despite its front element was
missing, I had a hunch, this lens works. (Above photo / at 55mm, F4)
In order to mount the lens onto 5D body and test, I needed to
cut off the protruded lens tail. (photo right)
Amazingly, the lens worked —(obviously except autofocus.)
(Still able to give a focus confirmation on manual setting !)
And on AV setting, F-aperture worked perfect and the
exposure was correct ! Without front element, the lens can still
give pretty good macro image from 1/1 at 24mm to x1.7 at 55mm.
(Though, with dreadful distortion — Don’t ask too much. 😀 )
This image was made on 55mm setting with F-11 /AV.
And this one was, at 23mm setting, F-11 / AV on Canon 5D Mk-III.
—– considering it was a cheap kit lens, broken and came free,
= it wasn’t too bad was it ? Canon is making pretty good product.
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* * * * *
(Above is the original size and its part enlargement of the top photo)
(Showed sharp detail though the depth of field is very shallow)
PS : To the untrained eyes, the photos above seems to be unsharp.
So, I show you a photo of a Butterfly Wing and its cropped,
enlarged images, taken by this broken EFS Zoom lens at 55mm F11.
(Photo above = at 55mm setting, F11 — X1.7 magnification)
(Center part enlarged photo of above picture)
— is it sharp enough ?
(don’t forget, this is not even a macro lens.) 😀
(Of course, if a junk lens could show the same quality, how
the Leica’s Macro Elmar or Zeiss’ Macro Sonner could
justify their price !
—– and, we can’t talk the price of the mass-produced kit
lens and the lens hand-made for few hundred scientists
on the same basis.)
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Yashica-Kyocera Macro (2)
Those two photos were the x6 shot of the Butterfly Wing.
As I described in the old post I made this lens last November
— and now, it is the time to take it out or find a good subject
to shoot on a table top.
Any how, it was a broken 38~115 mm Zoom Film camera of
Yashica-Kyocera.
To disassemble the camera is a brain game = Which screw,
where to start is quite crucial to have an easy game though,
even if you were completely wrong and made a mess, not much
damage would be done, nothing to lose but a bit of Ego. 😀
What I did with this camera was, taking out the optical unit
from the lens barrel and re-mounted it up-side-down
(front side back) to the same barrel.
(= Camera lens was designed to give the best performance
when the front was focused to the infinity, and the image
was closely projected to its back.
It’s mean, if the back of the lens was closely aimed to the subject,
the front side will make a big enlarged image.
= this exactly what the macro photography is.)
The lens barrel was glued onto a Contax-Canon mount adapter
to be used on the Canon DSLR.
And this (improvised) macro lens gives x1.7~x3.6 magnification.
(with a farther 44mm extension it gives x6 magnification !)
—– considering its cost virtually nothing, the performance isn’t too bad.
— though, with a test shot of yet again the egg of
Green lacewings which showed Chromatic Aberration,it was
found to be not as good as Chinese cheap Microscope Lens.
(which was designed for macro work))
—– incidentally, I’m very much puzzled by this Egg —
(1) Why so many of them were found in my room = Why
the insect prefer to came and lay the eggs here.
The larvae of Green lacewings eats Aphis kind, it’s mean
they should have chosen such kind of environment.
(2) When this egg was laid — last year ? If so, why I didn’t
see it till yesterday = it was on my desk, very front of my eyes.
(Photo above were x2 and x6 magnification)
Taking closeup photo of rather unwilling wasp
wasn’t very easy. 🙂
(With the enlargement, flaw of the lens such as a
Chromatic aberration, became appearent.)
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Kyocera Junk Macro — in Practice
I’m well aware, making lens etc is one thing and actually use it is the other.
Still, whether any worthwhile photo was created by it or not, is totally
different matter. —– I know, in this world, some of the people is having
a pleasure of possessing something rather than use it = just for a show-off
(of his, her wealth or So-called Good taste) —– and the manufacturer is
well aware of this phenomenon too. So that they are producing specifically
designed outrageously expensive model for this target, with “Art” or “Opus”
kind of the name. A camera, recently introduced from Leiz, Leica SL is one of
the extreme case, = the camera which can takes more or less the same kind of
picture but priced whopping $7450 for body. Even if non of the photographer
would buy it, still 10 of the “Leica Collector” in the world ought to buy = because,
it was made by Leiz and listed in their catalog. (Collection has to be complete.)
A Camera lens, I made out of junk
Camera has been with me a
while = waiting to encounter
good subject. ————————
Then, I found a tiny tiny dot on a Fig = it was an egg of the Green Lacewing.
Not very fashionable subject still, it is good for a macro-photography.
So, that’s how the top photo was made. ( x4 Magnification. though, quality
of the lens in comparison to my previous work, was not very impressive
—– shows chromatic aberration etc, hence, not very sharp.)
—– still, it was a proof that the lens was in operation.
(= I’m not feeling happy for just possessing the lens.) 🙂
*
PS : In order to have a bit more sharpness and the evenness of the image,
I put a hole of Black tape to reduce the effective F-Aperture to half of the
diameter (equivalent of 2 F-stops down) = the image quality was dramatically
improved ! — You might be realized that how the optics behave in simple
manner and lost a faith to worship expensive lens. 😀
(In fact, we are paying for the Brand image, not necessary for the quality,
otherwise who pay £3000 to a plastic camera ?)
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