Couldn't pass it up.

TonyCooper

I stopped by a camera repair shop owned by a friend of mine, and he had an old Micro-Nikkor lens and Nikon M2 extension tube that he sold to me for $30 for my Nikon D40. The lens is 3.5/32. Completely manual, of course.

I tried a few shots with it yesterday, but I really haven't spent the necessary time on test shots to get used to it. What I did shoot seems to be out-of-focus even though it seemed sharp in the viewfinder. The image shown here is without the extension. I left the hand holding the chip to show the size of the bug (dunno what it is). Only part of the bug seems in focus.

One thing that may be off is the diopter adjustment in my viewfinder. It's fine for regular photography, but may not be fine tuned for close-up.

I have no idea what shutter speed to set. This was taken at 1/400th in very bright Florida sunlight. I didn't note what the f/stop was, but I had to crank it up 2.5 stops in post-processing.

I'll be practicing this weekend to get a feel for this type of photography. Any suggestions for some basic rules of bright sun settings?

Also, but a rhetorical question, how do you get bugs to sit still and pose?
Most of the one shoot was wasted not being able to get the bug to sit still long enough to photograph.

Lord Vetinari

Nice one- suspect you are just suffering from the very narrow DOF you get in macro - does require very precise focus.
On a sunny day you should get enough light around F8-F11 at 1:1 magnification 1/200th ISO 100/200 but it is very subject dependant as you tend to get all one colour /brightness background.
It's a tiny dragonfly BTW.
Some suggestions here on how not to scare off bugs http://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72057594073223102/

Brian V.

TonyCooper

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Nice one- suspect you are just suffering from the very narrow DOF you get in macro - does require very precise focus.
On a sunny day you should get enough light around F8-F11 at 1:1 magnification 1/200th ISO 100/200 but it is very subject dependant as you tend to get all one colour /brightness background.
It's a tiny dragonfly BTW.
Some suggestions here on how not to scare off bugs http://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72057594073223102/

Brian V.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll work with those settings and see what I can do. In the meantime, here's some pix of something uglier than a bug...a Florida Softshell turtle (apalone ferox) with a hitch-hiker.

The third image is my daughter, who went with me that day, taking a photo. I included it to give you an idea of the size of the turtle. After it posed, it headed for a drainage ditch filled with water and immediately buried itself completely.