"Interact?" Um, yeah, "interact". Superposition is a special kind of interaction from which the original waves eventually emerge unchanged. At least that's the way articles in the SIAM Journal talk about it. (SIAM = Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics.) That model gives a nice transition t...

If I am wrong no doubt somebody will correct my understanding of the differences between the two types of lenses? What you wrote sounds like a great summary to me. One is designed specifically to work well at short distances and may not even focus at infinity; the other is primarily designed to wor...

puzzledpaul wrote:Maybe of passing interest ?
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/

More than passing, I would say! Definitely a useful taxonomy.

--Rik

is a diopter something like a converter? Strictly speaking, a "diopter" is a unit of measurement commonly used for lenses. The strength of eyeglasses is specified in diopters. So is the strength of auxiliary lenses added in front of regular camera lenses to permit focusing closer. Because of that l...

my objection is to a one word answer Agreed -- one word answers are seldom adequate, and even less often helpful. You wrote earlier, "I am fully aware of what diffraction is". But I don't know what your awareness is. In particular I don't know exactly what you mean by the word, even after all these...

With respect to your original Qs If you're intending to mainly take pics of butterflies, in a 'setting' - then (strictly speaking) they're unlikely to be 'macro' shots because the field of view is likely to be much greater than 22mm :) Hark! Do I feel a gentle tug on my chain? :wink: In light of pr...

Welcome aboard, Morgan -- and glad to hear that you're finding the site useful!

Indeed there is much expertise and artistry here. I'm looking forward to whatever you can add to it.

(What do you have sitting around in the archives??)

--Rik

For the terminally curious, here is a reduced-size animation showing the effect of changing aperture size, for the case of converging spherical waves (point source imaged with a perfect lens). Orange line marks the aperture; cyan line marks the center of the incoming spherical waves. This aperture h...

elf wrote:Don't you also have to calculate how much of the image circle the sensor covers? It would seem a 4/3 sensor would capture more photons than a 3/2 sensor.

No. The part about "same FOV" addresses this.

--Rik

Is it actually physically possible to keep the same perspective (camera-to-subject distance), FOV, DOF, shutter speed, and the same number of photons reaching the pixel sites? At infinity, it is possible. But if the magnification on 35mm sensor is 1x, what is happening with a smaller sensor? Is it ...

Simple explanations of complex phenomena are rarely comprehensive! Now there is a pithy quote if I've ever heard one. This issue of "Is it diffraction or is it spatial filtering?" has been bouncing around in my head since you guys raised the question. It got so bad that I finally went back to the b...

Mo,

It's a good question. You posted this topic in the Articles forum; I moved it to Beginners Guide because I thought it fit better here.

--Rik

Doug, Subject pose and stacking technique looks OK in these shots, but I still find the lighting too harsh to show off these subjects to best advantage. Notice the large amount of "black" areas, where not enough light is getting back to the camera to register. Part of those are shadows, part are shi...

On the top right of your photo are the "toes" by which they can attach to something solid. Top left , I think. (Just a typo, but possibly confusing.) BJ, thanks for responding to Mo's requests for ID on these things. :D It really helps to have somebody who has looked at enough variations of micro-c...

Laurie, These photos help a great deal -- thanks. Here's what I recommend...presuming that you have a few basic tools... Ditch the tripod -- it'll cause you nothing but grief. Obtain for yourself the following parts: 1 large piece of plywood or fiberboard, preferably 5/8" or thicker. An assortment o...