Butterfly Eggs Through Kiron and Opteka 10x

e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,376 Major grins
edited February 16, 2016 in Holy Macro
This is an image from my visit to RHS Wisley to photograph their tropical butterflies.

I carried a basic macro kit with me, not least because of condensation issues in the high humidity.

This supplementary lens is one I could not resist, at less than £20. I bought it in December 2014 but had not actually used it.

It was listed as “Opteka 55mm 10x HD² Professional Macro Converter Lens for Sony Alpha 18-55mm & 18-70mm Digital SLR Lenses”. It has “4 elements of high definition optical glass that provides unbelievable detail. “ I paid £14.81, with free postage (Amazon UK).

The lens was designed for dentists to use.

I wanted to see if it did anything like as well as my Marumi Achromats, although this is not a comparison.

Sold for up to 70mm lenses, I knew that it would give more magnification on a longer focal length.

Towards the end of my visit, before I moved on to the orchids, I found a member of staff, and a small crown of visitors, looking at these eggs on a leaf.

Attached the Opteka to my Kiron and racket it out to maximum magnification. That would normally give a FOV 17.5mm wide or 2:1. The Opteka decreased the FOV to 8mm or 4:1. I have cropped the image to a FOV of about 7mm. Personally, I usually find 3:1 the maximum practicable for hand-held.

The leaf was at about my waist level and trying to keep the focus and framing steady at a working distance of about 40mm was difficult. It didn’t help that the eggs were in a dip in the leaf, restricting the choice angle of view. Anyway, here is the best of two successful (flash) images.

This is not the most aesthetically pleasing image ever but it gives an idea of what the combination delivers at the expected DOF. Neither is it the most rigid of tests, more work to be done, but it looks promising.

Harold

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