Kalanchoe --Edit-- Kalanchoe by Olympus added

[MacroLuv]

Possibly Kalanchoe mangini.
Handheld with flash, Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM and Extension Tube EF25 II. The biggest flower is less than 2cm long and 1cm wide, no cropping.



Model Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Date/time original 17.03.2007 15:29:45
Shutter speed value 1/60 s
Aperture value f/4
ISO speed ratings ISO 100
Focal length 85 mm

[cactuspic]

Beautiful shot Nikola. The pendant flowers were very gracefully captured/

Irwin

[Ken Ramos]

You are getting pretty handy with that 400D there Nikola, great shot indeed.

[beetleman]

Very beautful Nikola. The buds in the background really add a lot of depth to the picture IMO. Nice and sharp & crisp

[Bruce Williams]

Nikola - Your set-up obviously has a very shallow depth of field (no surprises there ). The larger part of all three main flower heads are in perfect focus, however IMO the near part of the LH head and the bottom of the RH head are just outside of critical focus.

The parts that are in focus are beautifully crisp with excellent colour depth and detail. In fact there is clearly much more information available within the original file for a considerable enlargement on your forum posting without reaching empty magnification.

IMO this would have been a good candidate for stacking - maybe 4 or 5 frames (still leaving the heads in the background out of focus of course).

Bruce

[MacroLuv]

Thanks guys!
Yep Bruce, a very shallow depth of field and very limited focusing distance range.

[MacroLuv]

Here is the same plant captured with my old pocket Olympus camera, so you can make comparisons. However, this one lack natural light source. I've shortened vertical dimension to get the same frame proportion as Canon's 3:2.
By the way, far in the darkness you can see the silhouettes of two orchid flowers.



Model Olympus SP320
Date/time original 16.03.2007 19:35:32
Exposure time 1/30 s
F-number f/5.6
ISO speed ratings ISO 100
Focal length 8 mm

[Cyclops]

Very nice Nikolas, I do like Kalanchoes!

[rjlittlefield]

Here is the same plant captured with my old pocket Olympus camera, so you can make comparisons.

OK.

The big difference I notice is perspective. With the Olympus, flowers in the background are markedly smaller; with the Canon, they aren't. This is just because of the difference in focal length. With the Olympus's 8mm FL, the background flowers are relatively a lot farther away than the ones in focus. With the Canon's 85mm, they're not. The Olympus's view is a lot more like what a flying insect would see as it approaches.

Any difference in DOF is incidental and is due only to difference in aperture settings. As discussed elsewhere, for macro work you can get the same DOF at the same diffraction-limited resolution with all sensor sizes and all focal lengths.

--Rik

[Cyclops]

With the Olympus's 8mm FL, the background flowers are relatively a lot farther away than the ones in focus. With the Canon's 85mm, they're not. The Olympus's view is a lot more like what a flying insect would see as it approaches.

Any difference in DOF is incidental and is due only to difference in aperture settings.
--Rik

8mm! Is that a digi then? In which case I wonder what focal length that would equate to in 35mm terms, probably around 30-35mm? That would explain the perspective change as its a wide angle lens with more 'apparent' DOF.

[Bruce Williams]

Thanks for posting the SP-320 shot for comparision. You know I'd actually wondered about how they would've compared when you first posted your 400D image. Rik's analysis is helpful and informative as always - without his comments I would definitely have made a few wrong assumptions when comparing the two results.

Although, due to time difference and lighting conditions, we are not exactly comparing like for like (so some caution required), and despite the fact that the Oly shot is more completely in focus, I prefer your original D400 result. IMO it has more "life and substance" and the texture is somehow "more plausible". The Oly shot is good and I would be very pleased to have taken it myself - but the D400 does it for me

Bruce

[MacroLuv]

Larry, Rik and Bruce
thanks for comments. I mainly used different perspective with Olympus to avoid disturbing background details of pot, table etc. I didn't care about that with Canon because Canon's 85mm 1.8 lens done this job for me.