Beautiful Eyes?
by davidstorm
The butchered zoom is back!! Those of you on here 4 or 5 years ago may recall a series of forum threads about de-glassing an old zoom (in this case a FA 28-80) and attaching a reversed lens to it. You can use a standard 50mm lens, but this results in a working distance of no more than a couple of cm's from the subject. A better option is a reversed Nikkor F2.8 Enlarger lens, which gives between 5cm and 3cm working distance, depending on where you set the zoom's focus ring. About 65mm focal length seems to work best but you can experiment.
This was taken with the zoom set at 65mm, aperture of F32, camera on a monopod with a powerful manual flashgun attached to the hotshoe, with a cheap ebay softbox over the flash. X-sync mode on the Pentax K-5iis.
Late evening or early morning is best for these shots, so you can get the insects when they are fairly still and not flighty.
This was taken with the zoom set at 65mm, aperture of F32, camera on a monopod with a powerful manual flashgun attached to the hotshoe, with a cheap ebay softbox over the flash. X-sync mode on the Pentax K-5iis.
Late evening or early morning is best for these shots, so you can get the insects when they are fairly still and not flighty.
Liked by
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davidrobinson
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Fishbones
Uploaded09/07/2018 - 21:27
CategoryMacro
Views/Likes47/4
Posted 09/07/2018 - 22:10
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Wow! Thanks for the sharing your method. Great result 😊
Gradually learning the art of polishing turds
K-3, K-1
Pentax 18-35, 35-80, 50, 85, 300
Tokina 70-210
K-3, K-1
Pentax 18-35, 35-80, 50, 85, 300
Tokina 70-210
Posted 10/07/2018 - 00:56
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Wonderful portrait.
I think one of the benefits of this caper is that you retain use of the iris and the A setting in what has now become a variable length extension tube?
I think one of the benefits of this caper is that you retain use of the iris and the A setting in what has now become a variable length extension tube?
Posted 10/07/2018 - 09:26
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Magnificent work, David. Shows true dedication to the art.
(This could make a cover picture for a SciFi book !)
Best regards
Peter
(This could make a cover picture for a SciFi book !)
Best regards
Peter
Posted 10/07/2018 - 09:52
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Amazing capture David, seeing something on a new perspective but scary as hell !!
Posted 12/07/2018 - 16:00
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Stunning Scary Thing!! David seems to have summed up the benefits of your setup, which is near-genius.
Posted 12/07/2018 - 20:17
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davidwozhere wrote:
Wonderful portrait.
I think one of the benefits of this caper is that you retain use of the iris and the A setting in what has now become a variable length extension tube?
Wonderful portrait.
I think one of the benefits of this caper is that you retain use of the iris and the A setting in what has now become a variable length extension tube?
Hi David
Yes, you are spot-on, but there's another benefit too in that it's easy to fit a reversed lens on the front with simply a reversing ring, which costs a few pounds at most and pennies if you order an ebay one. There is a significant amount of work involved in de-glassing the lens and not ruining the aperture mechanism, but if I can do it anyone can. It's fun to try different reversed lenses on the front, a Pentax-A 50mm results in super-sharp & contrasty images, but with a savage working distance!
Cheers
David
Posted 12/07/2018 - 20:18
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go4IT wrote:
Stunning Scary Thing!! David seems to have summed up the benefits of your setup, which is near-genius.
Stunning Scary Thing!! David seems to have summed up the benefits of your setup, which is near-genius.
Hi go4IT
Yes, it is genius, but not my idea! There were threads on the forum a few years back, I don't recall who first suggested it, but DrOrloff was one of the contributors.
Cheers
David
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