Macroscope

Have you ever looked really closely at an object and thought ‘Wow’? I have all my life. As a really young child people would call me ‘The Little Scientist’ because I was always looking at plants and insects really closely (little did they know that I was actually going to become one). My fascination with things close up still remains to this day.

One of the big issues I had with communicating my passion for looking closely at things in photography was that all the cameras that I used couldn’t get close enough – this had to do with the fact that they were either cheap film or compact digital cameras. Even when I started playing around with SLRs I couldn’t really get in close, and I’d use a telephoto lens to do so (which made me lose detail).

Thankfully a conversation with a student a month or two ago at work put me on the right track – a set of cheap close-up filters off eBay would convert any of my SLR lenses to macro! I couldn’t believe it, but I forked out the AU$25 or so and got a set sent to me. I’m glad I did. They convert the 60cm minimum focusing distance on the 50mm lens to about 5cm. Just remember that if you’re going to use them to have a really small aperture (I almost always have it at f/22) to adjust for the lack of focus.

Let’s fast forward to today. For the first time since getting the filters I’ve stuck them onto a film camera – my Nikon FE which is loaded with Fujichrome Velvia 100. I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens, but from using the filters on digital I knew I needed to keep the background clear from outside debris and other crap which may draw the eye away from what I want. (even though it will be really out of focus). Thus the ‘home studio – daylight’ was born with a stool, some black material and my FE on a tripod. It was all set up on my veranda, and as you can see from the picture below it worked out well with the diffused light coming in. I set the automatic timer on the FE, focused and let it go. Most of my shots were of plants, but I got a few bits of mail photographed as well.

I was going to plug in my 1000w halogen lights (my ‘studio’ lighting) to increase contrast and put some awesome shadows in, but I decided against it, mainly because I’m testing to see how it all goes.

We’ll all have to wait for the results – one of the issues with film I’m sad to say. There should be no reason for it not to have worked – I checked the image at f/22 before every shot. And so you aren’t left hanging I’m putting in one of my other up-close shots taken with my D90. Enjoy!