Leg Joint Of A Beetle

[georgedingwall]

Hi all,

I've bveen trying out a new lens I picked up on ebay. A Schneider Componon HM 40mm F2.8 enlarger lens.

This image of a joint in a beetle's leg is one of the test images I did.
It is the joint between the Tibia and the Tarsus of the left middle leg.

This image is at the limit of magnification I can achieve from this lens with the extension I have available. The vertical field is the full height of the image from the camera, I cropped some dead space from the width.

This lens shows some great detail on the surface of the leg. I'm very pleased with it so far.



D200
Reverse mounted 40mm F2.8 @ F5.6 Schneider Componon HM Enlarger Lens.
1.4x teleconverter
Bellows + 2 sets of extension tubes mounted on focussing rail.
5 second exposure under tungsten light.
26 frames with 0.04 mm adjustment between frames.
Stacked in Helicon Focus.
Finished in Photoshop CS2.

[beetleman]

I think it is a super looking stack George. Like you said, there is a lot of texture showing up on the leg. Looks like leather

[Ken Ramos]

Doug said:

Looks like leather

Looks like some ones sweaty behind has been sitting on it too! However that is a good stack and as Doug said, it does have a leathery look.

[rjlittlefield]

George,

This is excellent! It's sharp, the lighting shows off the shape, the dimpled texture, and the gloss, and there's scarcely a trace of stacking artifact. Attractive composition, too. The only downside is that you've pushed the bar so high that now you'll have to struggle next time to beat it!

--Rik

[georgedingwall]

Hi Ken,

Looks like some ones sweaty behind has been sitting on it too!

I've never liked leather furniture, becasue of the sweaty behind problem.

Bye for now.

[georgedingwall]

Hi Rik,

George,

This is excellent! It's sharp, the lighting shows off the shape, the dimpled texture, and the gloss, and there's scarcely a trace of stacking artifact. Attractive composition, too. The only downside is that you've pushed the bar so high that now you'll have to struggle next time to beat it!

--Rik

Thanks for the comments. The new lens does seem to have excellent clarity and resolving power. Have you ever used any of the Schneider Componon HM lenses. They seem to be expensive lenses at retail, but I got mine quite cheap on ebay.

As for the downside you mention, that has already started. I now find myself rejecting some image stacks that I would have been happy with a few months ago. Having managed to get a few good images, it hard to accept that sometimes it just doesn't work. Some subjects just don't make good stacking projects.

Bye for now.

[rjlittlefield]

Have you ever used any of the Schneider Componon HM lenses.

No, I have not. I'll be interested to see more pictures with them, though. I'm very pleased with the set of Olympus bellows lenses that I assembled from eBay, but they were far from cheap even there. It would be nice to know that similar qualilty could be gotten more cheaply some other way.

...hard to accept that sometimes it just doesn't work. Some subjects just don't make good stacking projects.

More than once, I have thought that it would be fun and ultimately beneficial to make a series of posts titled "When stacking goes bad..."

I'd be interested to see some of the cases where stacking did not work well for you. It's good that we learn how to pick subjects that the current software handles well, but the software will never get better if that's all we do. Successes are good for morale. It's the failures that drive development.

--Rik

[Cyclops]

Wow what a cool shot!