No flies on me?

Lord Vetinari

Some recent fly shots- all taken with my emergency macro lens.

Crane fly



Cross your Legs!



Please help me



Golden Fly shot during a partial eclipse we had here this morning- all the bugs went very still- odd



Study in Yellow



Small bubble blowing fly (the fly not the bubble)



Help I'm falling... (actually hanging onto a strand of spiders web- a small (4mm) male non- biting midge)

TristanP

Holy mess. Those flies are awesome.

ScottMcLeod

Amazing. Just... Amazing.

What is this "emergency macro" setup you keep talking about?

rutt

What happens when you use your primary macro lens instead of your auxilary one?

Lord Vetinari

TristanP wrote:

Holy mess. Those flies are awesome.

Thanks TristanP

rutt wrote:

What happens when you use your primary macro lens instead of your auxilary one?

Well whilst it's a lot easier to use I actually think the shots I've been getting with the emergency setup are sharper. Not a fair comparison because I was shooting at max 1:1 and F13 with my normal macro lens, whilst these shots are at 1.5:1 and F11. I'll have to do a comparison when I get my macro lens back from Sigma.

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

ScottMcLeod wrote:

Amazing. Just... Amazing.

What is this "emergency macro" setup you keep talking about?

Thanks Scott.
The iris on my sigma 105mm EX macro lens stopped working properly , so it's back with Sigma uk being repaired hopefully, under warranty. The emergency lens is made from a Pentax smc 50mm F1.7 lens attached to some Kmount focus rings (about 7cms of them) - the smallest ring I superglued to a modded EOS Tmount adapter ring (I knocked the Tmount part out). This then fits on my canon eos 300D camera. I still had the Kmount parts knocking around from my old defunct Pentax KM and Me 35mm film cameras.

Brian V.

DavidTO

Number 2 is awesome. The rest are just fantastic.

Higgmeister

Hi Brian,
Your shots never cease to amaze me. The clarity is just outstanding as are your backgrounds. Quite an eye.

All are fantastic, but the title and the midge picture just cracks me up.

Thanks for flying me around,
Chris

Lord Vetinari

DavidTO wrote:

Number 2 is awesome. The rest are just fantastic.

Thanks David

Higgmeister wrote:

Hi Brian,
Your shots never cease to amaze me. The clarity is just outstanding as are your backgrounds. Quite an eye.

All are fantastic, but the title and the midge picture just cracks me up.

Thanks for flying me around,
Chris

Thanks Chris
As I've said before the background are normally accidental apart from me choosing the best pics after. I always find it very difficult to work out how the background will appear when actually shooting.

Brian V.

Skippy

Wow Brian

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Some recent fly shots- all taken with my emergency macro lens.
Crane fly
Cross your Legs!
Please help me
Golden Fly shot during a partial eclipse we had here this morning- all the bugs went very still- odd
Study in Yellow
Small bubble blowing fly (the fly not the bubble)
Help I'm falling... (actually hanging onto a strand of spiders web- a small (4mm) male non- biting midge)

I got to see one of those flies that blows bubbles while I was in USA, I'd only ever seen pictures of them here on this forum, so it was great to actually see one for myself..... I love the detail in your Macro shots they are really incredible shots Brian .....I enjoy your posts very much... Skippy (Australia)

pathfinder

Very nice series LV.
I get the impression that the reversed 50mm lens used here may have more DOF than your longer 105mm macro. It would make sense, as longer focal length lenses has shallower DOF generally. How DO you get so close without the critters just departing?

bfjr

Great detail and sharpness Brian

tmlphoto

Excellent stuff there LV. Very impressive.

Khaos

I'm amazed. I love these shots.

DRT-Maverick

Heh, still wish my 1:1 180mm macro would get that high detail. I should look into a 50mm macro and reverse ring.

Lord Vetinari

Re- Pathfinder

pathfinder wrote:

Very nice series LV.
I get the impression that the reversed 50mm lens used here may have more DOF than your longer 105mm macro. It would make sense, as longer focal length lenses has shallower DOF generally. How DO you get so close without the critters just departing?

Thanks Pathfinder,
The 50mm lens is not reversed- it's just mounted on some extension rings.
Not sure about the DOF - I think it is actually lower than the 105mm at 1:1. I should have mentioned two of the shots (the cranefly and the fly with the yellow background were focus stacked from two pics- I do that so often I tend to forget. I suspect the setup is sharper than my macro lens but I will need to test that under some control condtions.
The critters do depart sometimes- one problem with this setup is the focus point is about 2" from the front of the lens (and my flash diffuser), however I suspect the lower temperatures we have now means the bugs are a bit slower. As I mentioned in the post, the shot of the gold fly was taken during the partial eclipse yesterday and that fly seemed just frozen by the odd light conditions.

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

Thanks bfjr, Thomas and Khaos

bfjr wrote:

Great detail and sharpness Brian

Thanks bfjr

tmlphoto wrote:

Excellent stuff there LV. Very impressive.

Thanks Thomas

Khaos wrote:

I'm amazed. I love these shots.

Thanks Khaos

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

DRT-Maverick wrote:

Heh, still wish my 1:1 180mm macro would get that high detail. I should look into a 50mm macro and reverse ring.

Thanks DRT- Maverick.
As I said above the lens is a std 50mm smc Pentax F1.7 M lens (not a macro) and it's on extension rings not reversing rings. Might be worth trying some extension rings on your 180mm, but I suspect you would need a tripod. You could try reversing a 50mm lens onto the 180 but that will give you very close focusing point (I'd guess about 2cms from the front of the lens) and very high magnification (about 3.5:1). I was lucky to have these bits just laying around so could try it without any great expense lol.

Brian V.

BigAl

Great shots Brian. I can see you turfing out the 105 when it gets back

Lord Vetinari

Re- Skippy

Skippy wrote:

I got to see one of those flies that blows bubbles while I was in USA, I'd only ever seen pictures of them here on this forum, so it was great to actually see one for myself..... I love the detail in your Macro shots they are really incredible shots Brian .....I enjoy your posts very much... Skippy (Australia)

Thanks Skippy,
Yes I didn't realise they did that until I shot one this year- The record so far is 11 bubbles by one fly at one sitting lol. Must admit the above bubble shot is the first time I've seen decent refraction through the bubble.
Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

Re- Alan

BigAl wrote:

Great shots Brian. I can see you turfing out the 105 when it gets back

Thanks Al,
I'm not sure if the comparison is fair, I'll need to do some comparison shots and perhaps get some EOS rings to try. The emergency setup is a bit limiting in the sense of zoom levels etc and a pain to use because it's completely manual (shooting with the aperture shut down to F11 is hard on the eyes). Have to admit though I've been very pleased with the quality of the shots I do get in focus, I thought focus rings and standard lenses gave inferior results to dedicated macro lenses, but these are certainly not inferior!

Brian V.

wholenewlight

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Thanks Scott.
The iris on my sigma 105mm EX macro lens stopped working properly , so it's back with Sigma uk being repaired hopefully, under warranty. The emergency lens is made from a Pentax smc 50mm F1.7 lens attached to some Kmount focus rings (about 7cms of them) - the smallest ring I superglued to a modded EOS Tmount adapter ring (I knocked the Tmount part out). This then fits on my canon eos 300D camera. I still had the Kmount parts knocking around from my old defunct Pentax KM and Me 35mm film cameras.

Brian V.

Okay, if I wanted to replicate your "emergency" setup:

• I need a 50mm Nikon lens. Autofocus certainly not necessary. How about lens speed? I was looking at this one but it is an f2. If I'm stopping down will the slower max speed matter?
• I'll need a reversing ring. easy to get
• And some used extension tubes

Maybe I'll give it a try - for about $100 I could be rolling with this type of setup.

Lord Vetinari

wholenewlight wrote:

Okay, if I wanted to replicate your "emergency" setup:

• I need a 50mm Nikon lens. Autofocus certainly not necessary. How about lens speed? I was looking at this one but it is an f2. If I'm stopping down will the slower max speed matter?
• I'll need a reversing ring. easy to get
• And some used extension tubes

Maybe I'll give it a try - for about $100 I could be rolling with this type of setup.

You just need a high quality 50mm lens- speed does not matter because normally you would be shooting around F8-F16 for max dof.
If you are using a nikon body then you just need the nikon fit extension tubes, no reversing ring. The only oddity on my setup was I had to use a modded EOS Tmount adapter so I could fit my old pentax tubes and lens to the EOS body. You would need about 7cm of rings with a 50mm lens to get the 1.5:1 magnification I'm getting. The downside of a setup like this is obviously no zoom capability apart from removing rings although you do get slight differences by altering the focus and distance of the 50mm lens, and also you will closer than normal to the subject- my rig focuses about 2" from the subject to the front of the lens.
I've actually just bought (this morning) a set of EOS rings which I'm trying with my 200mm lens- with a 1.4X extender as well I can get upto 1:1.5 with a decent focus distance (about 2 feet). I actually want the rings to play with my macro lens when it gets back.
Hope that helps

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

Illustration of canon kit lens on EOS rings
Just to add further info to some of the questions. I just purchased some proper EOS closeup tubes (from Jessops UK £75 for three) and tried them with the kit 18-55mm lens supplied with the eos300d/350D. This is not exactly a high optical quality lens, but much to my suprise gave quite good images stopped down to F11. Not as good as my emergency pentax lens setup .

Some quick snaps below- last two are cropped.
Just added one more shot at 1.5:1 F13 with the kit lens and all the rings (very last shot).

BigAl

That last one is pretty good Brian! Means you can at least use the widest aperture of the kit lens to focus. :

I'm surprised the extension tubes work with the kit lens - I read on the B&H site that the Kenko tubes can't work with EF-S lenses.

Lord Vetinari

BigAl wrote:

That last one is pretty good Brian! Means you can at least use the widest aperture of the kit lens to focus. :

I'm surprised the extension tubes work with the kit lens - I read on the B&H site that the Kenko tubes can't work with EF-S lenses.

Thanks Al,
Yes you have a point about the EF-s lens. When I bought the rings I said to the manager "I assume these will not work with EF-s lenses" and he agreed they didn't. However they obviously do- even the autofocus works if there is enough light (not that I use AF). Wonder if there is some confusion here as you certainly can't use 1.4X or 2* extenders with the kit lens (you can if you put a macro ring on first). Just checked the box the rings came in and there is a little addendum note saying in Japanese/English "the extenders are available to the EF_S series lenses"- presumably means they do work!.
You are right about the aperture- lot easier to focus at F5.6 or whatever it is.
Main reason for getting the rings was to do some comparison shots with the 105mm macro at 1.5:1, I'm supposed to be getting it back at the end of this week.

Brian V.