Macro Mondays - week #1 - theme: KEYCHAIN

[Jan1977]

I have done some quick testshots myself, hand-held, but it illustrates the challenge of macro and aspects of it. So I post here.

An about 1:1 frame of a key on my key ring, shot on f2.8 and close by, so shallow depth of field. This is the uncropped frame, but resized to 1600 long side.

Of the same photo, an about 1600 pixels long side crop of the original frame, exported to long side 1600 pixels:

In this second one, you see more blur, which you do not see in the resized frame that obvious. Shallow dof and difficult focussing, so hard to get the picture sharp. (For static macro shots, people often use atripod for a reason).

Here is a uncropped shot from further away, resized to 1600 long side of the same set of keys:

It appears much sharper, due to more distance to the subject, but still f2.8.

And a crop of about 1600 long side of this photo:

When we look at both of the crops, it clearly shows much more detail in the "true" macro crop (first crop in this post).

 

[Jan1977]

Challenge with macro is to find a composition. Putting more emphasis on the "chain" part of this weeks theme, a leading line of the ring can give a certain composition.

Here shot at f2.8, due to limited dof, difficult to make it attractive in this way.

Here a slightly different angle, still at f2.8. Ring is more pronounced, but the keys are hard to identify.

And here is a crop of some marks on the ring. Cropped to about 1600 long side from orginal frame above:

Those are details you only really capture with macro like magnifications.

I then narrowed the aperture to f13 to get more depth of field. More in focus, better to recognize the subject, but still quite dependent on where focus actually was with respect to look and feel of the photo. Both full frame photos. just resized to 1600 long side.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

I have done some quick testshots myself, hand-held, but it illustrates the challenge of macro and aspects of it. So I post here.

Cool. Thanks for posting them.

So, yeah, I can get very much closer with the RF 100 Macro!

Challenge with macro is to find a composition. Putting more emphasis on the "chain" part of this weeks theme, a leading line of the ring can give a certain composition.

I was thinking the exact same thing, that focusing on the ring that holds the keys could maybe result in a more creative image, say. And yes, the theme is keyCHAIN, not "keys".

I hope @Terry McDaniel will contribute too. He is an experienced macro shooter.

 

[Jan1977]

I also have a Laowa 25 mm 2.5-5x lens. Set the lens to f16 and shot handheld with a help ring light on the front of the lens. Just for illustration purposes with respect to impact of magnification. SInce the lens is manual, exif is not complete.

Here is about 2.5x magnification on the key with the number, shown in a previous post. It is just resized to 1600 long side, no cropping involved:

And this is an about 1600 pixel crop of the frame:

Since it was quick and hand held, the blur and impact of small DoF shows in the crop, while the resized full frame is more forgiving.

And this is abiut 5x magnication, just resized to 1600 pixels long side:

And a crop thereof:

The crop shows how challenging it becomes when magnifications get larger. (For proper shooting of this subject I should have set up a tripod and maybe even focus-stack.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

The crop shows how challenging it becomes when magnifications get larger. (For proper shooting of this subject I should have set up a tripod and maybe even focus-stack.

Indeed. I once tried the reverse lens method, with two lenses and not having a reverse ring adapter, hand holding the reversed lens, trying to steady it. It was obviously very hard to focus, the DOF was crazy thin. So yes, I understand what you mean here. That Laowa lens seems quite fascinating though, impressive magnifications.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Okay, I fiddled a bit with some keychains again tonight. It's getting better. Here's one that I like.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

And then I decided to put a small ring with two keys on my iPad, googled "colourful pattern" and got this. This one is definitely a true macro!

 

[Terry McDaniel]

 

[pcs]

I still wonder about how macro works exactly though. I shot the above with the Canon 100mm macro lens. For shots to be “true” macro do I have to take them at minimum focus distance then to get as close to the subject as I can?

The RF 100macro is 1.4x at minimum focus distance(MFD) so for 1:1 you're not even at the MFD.

If you set your camera to show the focal length/focus distance the RF macro also shows the magnification factor.

This is an experiment I did with a 2-euro coin(all taken at MFD, just hand held)
-RF100 at 1x

-RF100 at 1.4x

-RF100 at 1.4 with 35mm extension ring

-Loawa venus 25mm at 2x

-Loawa venus at 5x

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

If you set your camera to show the focal length/focus distance the RF macro also shows the magnification factor.

Ah, cool. I didn’t know that! That’s really helpful. I’ll check it out. Thanks!

Great coin pics too. Now post a keychain!