Monday
Jun222009
Macro Photos From The Canon EOS 350D / Rebel XT, Pentacon 50mm F1.8, Extension Tubes... And Flash
Monday, June 22, 2009 at 9:04PM
It's that time of year when the opportunity to play around with Macro photography becomes irresistible. The flowers are in full, glorious, bloom, and I've got a new camera, the Canon 350d / Rebel XT to play with.
I switched to the Pentacon 50mm F1.8 lens that I got from the car boot last week-end, using my M42 lens mount adapter on the 350D, and a few extension tubes. The extension tubes allow you to focus really close, but the depth of field is minuscule, so camera shake doesn't just lead to movement blur, but also the subject actually moves out of the zone of sharpness.
Instead of digging out my tripod, I decided to try something different, and activated the pop-up flash on my camera. Dialling in some exposure compensation to darken some of the shots, the results were alright for a first try with this lens combination. For really sharp shots I'll have to set up my tripod and tighten up the aperture a bit.
All these photographs were shot in RAW, and processed in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. Although still dipping my toes into the world of uncompressed files, I have to say that the flexibility of RAW is amazing, especially when it comes to white-balance. Just flicking through the White Balance options in Adobe Camera RAW gives the same photo some different looks, without adding the noise and artifacts that sometimes happens with .jpg.
Thanks, Rob.
I switched to the Pentacon 50mm F1.8 lens that I got from the car boot last week-end, using my M42 lens mount adapter on the 350D, and a few extension tubes. The extension tubes allow you to focus really close, but the depth of field is minuscule, so camera shake doesn't just lead to movement blur, but also the subject actually moves out of the zone of sharpness.
Instead of digging out my tripod, I decided to try something different, and activated the pop-up flash on my camera. Dialling in some exposure compensation to darken some of the shots, the results were alright for a first try with this lens combination. For really sharp shots I'll have to set up my tripod and tighten up the aperture a bit.
All these photographs were shot in RAW, and processed in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. Although still dipping my toes into the world of uncompressed files, I have to say that the flexibility of RAW is amazing, especially when it comes to white-balance. Just flicking through the White Balance options in Adobe Camera RAW gives the same photo some different looks, without adding the noise and artifacts that sometimes happens with .jpg.
Thanks, Rob.
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