Penny macro contest - revisited

It's time a few of us wasted a bit more time on this
Whenever I want to muck about or try a bit of Heath-Robinson Macro, I always use the 'penny test'.
English penny - look under the Queen's head for a little dot (they don't all have them).
Photograph it as well as you can using anything you like.
Display THE WHOLE IMAGE no crops.
Points awarded for ingenuity, clarity, size, general photographic merit and size. Did I mention size?
Points deducted for using macro lenses
An extra photo of your set-up would be nice.
Here's my starter for 10...


Extension tubes, helicoid from fuji lens, El-Nikkor 50 2.8 enlarger lens, Raynox element taped to the end. Sunlight.



Honorable mention to Danniel Bridge, who did the best job years ago, but I can't find the thread.

This sounds like you've started a competition of sorts, so I've moved it there.

I'm so poor, I don't even have a penny!! Can I enter a photo of an IOU instead??

I could do a bank transfer
Might help our foreign friends to, as they can't enter

Could this be the link you referred to. https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/up-close-and-personal---3319
Been meaning to have a go at this

That's the one Geordie10 See what I mean? Could have sworn I entered that round... evidently not, but it inspired me
I have got a lot closer than my new image above, but this contest's objectives are a little wider.

what is that 'fotomate' railing system? I could well be answering my own question!

It's a cheap macro rail, for stacking shots or positioning. Not very good - it moves sideways when you change direction or tighten the locking screw. So only good for course adjustments. Hence the helicoid, which gives me a further 1 inch of fine movement.

I usually photograph the whole coin, and haven't yet done anything for your challenge (need to find the right coin)
I have got a shot of a 20p coin though;


20p detail by Analyst 1, on Flickr

The W was under 1mm accross, and the set up might loose me more points - not a macro lens, but a microscope (not on high power!) with the camera mounted via a self modified adapter.

I'll try & do this properly later

Ah ha, still, you 'bodged' the adapter, that's good
The IRB on the penny is slightly under 1.5 mm I think. So my image is about 3.5 x macro. So you have the advantage there by the looks of it.

Ahhh, I remember this old chestnut.

Oddly, I made these images for a talk on macro that I did for my local camera club in January.

I don't have any UK coins, this is a 2 Cent (0.02€) piece. Look at the crowned M (no idea what it means) to the right of the right hand tower, it's approx. 0.8mm wide.

All images taken with a Pentax K-5 II and are uncropped. I wanted to show the different DOF effects so these are taken at 45 degrees and lit with an AF540FGZ and Stofen diffuser.

This first image was taken with a smc Pentax-FA 50mm macro lens at its closest focussing distance, magnification ratio 1:1.




This image was taken with a 28mm lens reversed on to approx. 250mm of extension tube & bellows. Magnification ratio (you can measure it on your screen) is approx. 9:1.

Nice

My effort:




as posted on ephotozine

I don't have any extension tubes so this is my best attempt with what I could lay my hands on:




Shot straight on because the DOF is exceedingly shallow.

I will loose points because in the middle of my set-up was a 100mm macro lens:




K-5 with 2x teleconveter followed by the Samsung equivalent of the DFA100 macro back-to-back with a Pentax-A 50mm 1:1.7. It had to be fairly close to achieve focus, shadowing the subject, so the light was provided with a little LED torch.

What looked like a fairly new and shiny 1P coin appeared rather nasty at this magnification .

Glyn

Had a quick go at this but the light was no good so tried to light it with the light on my phone
Any way from camera moving forward I have K30/KENKO 1.5X/KENKO 2.0X CONVERTERS/3X SETS EXTENSION TUBES/PENTAX A50mm F1.7@F16 10s exposure 12 sec delay to try and counter the wobble! Live view focus peaking.




might have another go when I have a bit more time and better light.