basics of vibration control w/ copy stand?

Just bought that first macro lens? Post here to get helpful feedback and answers to any questions you might have.

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Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

a brief update - instead of persevering with the microscope / camera separation, I realised a lot of my motivation for trying this was basically 'macro' rather than 'micro' - so I kick-started a side project i'd been hoping to one day achieve and moved the copy stand across, and am figuring out some kind of vertical macro setup using my old 1000D canon.

with any luck I will then have two independent setups, [microscope/macro] and won't have to keep bodging the BH2 into service for focus stacking, and would also end up with a few more options.

Without a reliable rail, i've stuck the dslr directly to the stand and will try out moving the subject up and down instead - i stole a dual-speed focuser from my telescope which does the job for now, but it can't be a permanent fixture. Ideally another olympus focus block would work, but they aren't easy to find cheaply.


Anyway, i'll probably end up posting some results if i hit on something that works. :)

thank you once more for the suggestions and feedback.

JohnyM
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Post by JohnyM »

How will you solve lighting issue while moving the subject?

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

JohnyM wrote:How will you solve lighting issue while moving the subject?
Good question haha :oops: umm, well so far I've been trying diffusers like a white plastic coffee cup with bottom cut out, and the insect is raised/lowered inside it - i'm thinking.. that with a reasonably high magnification/shallow DOF the distance it moves won't be very much? about an inch or so to cover eg a beetle ..?

I got hold of a cheap flashgun, and found the images are sharper, but the flash itself - a Neewer tt560 - is giving out inconsistent light, [even with no movement] so both those problems are mixed in together at the moment [subject movement and flash troubles] but yeah, its definitely something I should be working on :)

i'm trying various things though - it feels like I have lots of bits, but they aren't quite coming together properly :oops: :?:

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

this was the first try using the flash and vertical setup - a Telescope focuser for subject movement.

I was so chuffed to have gotten something to work I forgot to insert a colour background, so its boring grey - its a head of a bug that I made a pano of a week or so back [using the microscope] . :)

the lens was a lomo 3.7 on a canon 1000D

Image

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

This looks good!

No worries about the "boring grey". Grey serves as a nice reference that suggests the subject's color really is as shown. A bit of color might be nice, but only something that complements the subject, and not garish.

--Rik

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

thanks Rik - yeah the bugs colours are really nice up close - I don't think I posted the original pano that I made when I first got it [using the microscope and ping-pong ball diffuser]. Was a bit too big of a task really, but I saw it through :D

Around 100 panels I believe, with each one a focus stack, lol my dslr was sore afterwards... :!:

Image'Man-faced' beetle panorama by Jay Bird, on Flickr


this is the zoomable image near full size on extrazoom

http://extrazoom.com/image-100082.html?s=huln50x50

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

The pano is very impressive!

What are the pixel dimensions of that thing, anyway?

--Rik

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

rjlittlefield wrote:The pano is very impressive!

What are the pixel dimensions of that thing, anyway?

--Rik
thabks - i'm not 100 percent on some details, but the extrazoom image is 8000px wide, and was reduced from the original 1.32gb (gigapixel?) stitch from microsoftICE. My laptop really struggled, and tiny adjustments took a very long time to compute

I will need to figure a few things out before i try something like that again :P

the overall setup and technique was less than ideal - the depressing thing was i probably could have gotten a similar result with a macro lens and 10 shots ... haha oh well. :oops: :P :!: :lol: live 'n' learn innit

JohnyM
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Post by JohnyM »

That is some impressive photo! And you certainly handled your lighting very well, despite it moving against the subject.

Question though:
What you did with output image? What was your motivation to create that ~100 tile stich?

8000px is indeed something that you can quite eazy capture with modern camera like A7R series or similar, and it produces okay'ish 150cmx100cm print.

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

JohnyM wrote:That is some impressive photo! And you certainly handled your lighting very well, despite it moving against the subject.

Question though:
What you did with output image? What was your motivation to create that ~100 tile stich?

8000px is indeed something that you can quite eazy capture with modern camera like A7R series or similar, and it produces okay'ish 150cmx100cm print.
haha - another good question :D i honestly have zero clue why i did it. I think i basically started with a shot of the eye - then a stitch of the head - figured why not keep going and got carried away - by the time i realised how many panels such a narrow FOV would require it was halfway through :P

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

The original on Flickr is 13586 wide
So you'd need a 120MP camera, and a lens which might cost a bit more than the £25 Lomo!
Cool :smt045
Chris R

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

ChrisR wrote:The original on Flickr is 13586 wide
So you'd need a 120MP camera, and a lens which might cost a bit more than the £25 Lomo!
Cool :smt045
hmm, actually that is slightly consoling ChrisR, thank you :) I do kinda like the image - but I just think next time I should be a bit smarter with my time/energy/equipment etc. :oops:

like e.g my poor DSLR has only so many shutter clicks before it goes to silicon heaven :) [and I wasn't it's first owner] :P

Aenima
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Post by Aenima »

testing out flash - seems to be a lot sharper (also the lomo 3.7x helped there as well) :)

Really pleased to have something set up that can produce a reasonable result.

Still a lot of tweaking to be done, but happy with the progress.

Imagefly lomo 3,7x by Jay Bird, on Flickr



*single stack of ~200 frames ISO100 1/200s - tt560 flash - 1000D canon, lomo 3.7x obj

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