Macro Show Me This Dragons Nose

[mareo1912]

Hey fellow members,

 

got my new macro lens today and wanted to share some of the shots. Yet a lot to optimize but I was stunned by the detail that comes up.

Sizes for comparizon: Dragons nose is 1.2mm on full length

                                   The center triangle on the shibuichi Tsuba is 1.9mm, the crack invisible with bare eyes.

                                   The blade picture is from a suguha hamon, you see the tempered area, about 7mm wide

                                   The peonys center bulb is 3.3mm in diameter (btw a stunning piece!)

 

Any folks here that know more about photography and want to share some advice to get better pics?

 

Best regards,

Marco

[TETSUGENDO]

Spectacular detail, well done Marco!

 

Cheers,

[Vermithrax16]

WOW! Excellent work,thanks for posting.

[CSM101]

Hi Marco,

 

when it comes to Macro you have to learn how to stack a photo. Your depth of field is very small. 2-4 mm at it´s best.

 

Uwe G.

[Ken-Hawaii]

The macro lens is only as good as the lighting, Marco, & if you plan to shoot a lot of images as close as you did here, I'd suggest investing in a ring light.

 

The stacking technique Uwe mentions is covered here: https://petapixel.com/2014/09/07/tutorial-easily-focus-stack-using-photoshop-feature-probably-didnt-know/

[Vermithrax16]

Love Marco's shots as is and I had zero idea what Uwe and Ken were talking about.........

 

then I watched the video and really looked at Uwe's comparative pictures above. WOW!!!!!  Really blown away at the visual capture there. Great ideas guys.

[Bazza]

Marco said:

 

Dragons nose is 1.2mm on full length

 

Wonderful detail indeed.  Worse case of inverse acne I've ever seen!!  If the nose were red instead of gold I'm sure we would be looking at the local reprobate!!!

 

BaZZa.

 

PS - having a 60mm macro lens I'm reading up on stacked images...

[mareo1912]

Thanks for the kind words and also for the advice!

 

with all honesty I'm really low budget with the photographs, so I don't expect to get the stars from the sky 

 

With the stacking I had already made the photos for that, but was too busy yesterday, so tried it this morning (Attached).

I find the light problematic, will need a more homogenous source, only problem is that I'm really max.1cm away from the object and that's hard to lighten up.

 

Marco

[w.y.chan]

Marco what is the new Macro lens?

[Surfson]

It's amazing what these artists did with their bare hands.  I have always wondered - did kinko artists have magnifying glasses/lenses of any kind to use while they work?  

[TETSUGENDO]

YES!

 

Cheers,

[Surfson]

I have never seen a Japanese Edo period magnifying glass.  Have you Steven?  Do you have any photos?  

[TETSUGENDO]

Yes, the older examples are lapidary work in rock crystal, later ones are glass.  No, try a web search.

[kissakai]

I've tried with my macro lens but nowhere as good as your

I'll have to get it out and try again

[Ken-Hawaii]

Much better depth-of-field, Marco, good work!

 

A ring-light goes around your lens, & they're pretty inexpensive. I use one like this: https://www.amazon.com/SAMTIAN-Macro-Display-Adapter-Diffusers/dp/B01HPGI5B2/& it costs all of $29.

 

One hint for macro images is to keep a bottle of compressed-air with you, & blow off all the crud that you won't know is there until you blow up your photo.

[dirtvictim]

Are you related to biggie smalls? LOL nice pics.

[mareo1912]

Thanks guys!

 

Thanks for the link Ken, will have a take on that item!

[kissakai]

I'd like to thank Ken for suggesting the use of a light ring. I bought one from Amazon and I thought is was quite cheap

So back out with the Macro lens and try again

The results are below.

At the moment I'm still playing and will use my tripod next time

The first image is the whole tsuba so you can see where the enlarged areas are located

 

 

 

 

 

Any pointer to better imaging would help especially the depth of field.

I tried the 'ring' with high and low light and also you can turn off the left or right hand lights to give a more 3D effect

 

An off shoot from using this ring light is for my normal tsuba images. Normally I have two spot lights under a light tent but it is fiddly to get an even light

With the 'ring' is much more of an even light and less fiddly. A real bonus for my new images.

One note is that with the clear filter the colour is all wrong so you need to use the off white filter which gives a good true colour. With my previous setting these were darker patches

 

 

 

Grev

 

 

 

 

 

[Curran]

It seems I have a lot to learn.