Hi All!!!

[Jason G]

Good Morning - Afternoon - Evening - Night all (Delete as applicable )

I'm new here. Well I suppose you guessed. Um... not too sure what to say... I'm new. No, said that. Um... something else, surely.

Ah. I've been into wildlife photography for about 25mths now and enjoy 'being out in the field' and logging inverts. I have recently discovered home-made macro lenses, have made one and now spend a lot of time loooking for new photographic subjects.

I think this forum is very much suited to my me!!!

I look forward to spending time here

Take care,

Jason

[Cyclops]

Hi Jason from a fellow brit. Where about in England are you? And whats this about home made macro lenses-intrigued.
I'm Larry BTW!
_________________
Canon 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

[rjlittlefield]

Jamie, welcome aboard!

You'll find this to be a friendly and knowledgeable community.

One of the nice features of the forum's structure is that all of the old postings are readable and searchable.

As a new member and new to macro, I suspect you'd find it helpful to "browse the stacks", so to speak.

Poke around in both recent and older postings, do some searches, and in general get a feel for what techniques other people have found useful in producing high quality images.

The camera that you're using, Fuji S5600, is well suited to the use of "snoots" for routing on-camera flash to illuminates close-up subjects. I suspect you might find that a good outlet for your creative energies.

That camera can also be used with high-quality closeup lenses and reversed camera lenses to get great pictures of small subjects. Using a basic magnifying glass as a "home-made macro lens" is briefly satisfying, but after the thrill of success wears off I suspect you'll be looking for better optics to get better pictures.

--Rik

[Jason G]

Hi Larry! Yep, a fellow Brit - - the lenses are very technical. They are made of... a magnifying glass attached in front of the lens

Yes Rik, satisfying but you know me too well. The grass is always greener

Thanks for the welcome, it looks like a nice active board

[rjlittlefield]

How about telling us about your avatar?

Hovering hoverflies are not easy to shoot!

--Rik

[Jason G]

No, I didn't shoot it, that would be difficult. I like them too much.



Oh, you mean that sort of shoot it!

Yes, it was the best of about 10-15 photographs. The species is E. eligans, one of the biggest - the Spring hoverfly. I don't think it's in the US. You have a favourite, hoverfly or other invert?

[Stevie]

Hi Jason , welcome aboard .
I tried the magnifying glass approach too years ago .
Tell me , is your magnifier made of glass or has it a acrylic lens ?
Mine was acrylic batterypowered light build in and this tiny magnifier that had double tha magnification of of the main lens .
Pretty high tech .

[Aynia]

Hi Jason,

Looking forward to your photos!

[Jason G]

Thanks Aynia

[rjlittlefield]

[Jason G]

Glad you have an embarrased smiley - - I feel I'll need it a bit here...

I do actually get the equiv. bit, just forgot to write it - - however, I didn't know how that equated in the terms you gave but now do, so thanks Rik

[rjlittlefield]

Not to worry -- most of us reserve that smilie for a lot more embarrassing things than this, and still we use it quite a lot!

You've probably noticed that I'm a bit of stickler for technical accuracy.

But also you seem eager to learn, and the effects of sensor size are one place where it's very easy to get confused. The big example is DOF, where for example f/5.6 on your camera is like f/32 on a 35 mm camera. That's because for otherwise equivalent images, DOF depends on the absolute diameter of the lens opening, not its f-number. So don't feel bad that your camera only stops down to f/8, when you see other people in the forum shooting at f/22. You have to take the sensor size into account.

--Rik

[Jason G]

Actually, I often have wondered. Thanks - again