Caught without a macro lens (butterfly close up)

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:58 am

I took a one-camera-one-lens walk today with a Zeiss APO Sonnar 135/2 mounted on a Sony A7rii. Unfortunately, I found more subjects suited for a macro lens than for the lens I'd chosen to carry. No big deal though. I don't worry about what I can't shoot on these trips, but I did grab some hand held shots of small butterflies anyway, even though they were just tiny blobs in the viewfinder.

Once I got back home, I was surprised to see I'd captured some far better "record shots" than I expected! It says a lot about the quality of the APO Sonnar that a 100% (pixel for pixel) crop still looks nice. Clearly it's not suited for print, but it is good enough for small online snaps like this.

Zeiss APO Sonnar 135/2 at 1/1250, f/2.5, ISO 100 (~4ft from the subject). A 1024 x 768 crop from the original 7952 x 5304 image.

Just for context - the original image straight from the camera

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:09 pm

It's equally impressive that you were able to hit focus so precisely, given all the other stuff in that frame.

What technique did you use?

--Rik

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:47 pm

Thanks Rik. Very little "technique" on my part, more leveraging the technology inherent in a mirrorless camera (for manual focus). In body stabilisation removes camera shake and 12.5x zoom plus focus peaking in the electronic viewfinder makes it easy to isolate the subject and nail focus.

These features were the enabler for me to properly enjoy manual focus work (where MF is appropriate). I've always loved the "slow thoughtful" aspect of manual focus photography but was never very good at it in my DSLR days. I couldn't see well enough with an optical viewfinder to judge critical focus and using live-view left the camera wobbling around in my outstretched hands (instead of having it jammed against my face for extra stability). Since "going mirrorless" I've found it so much easier that I do WAY more manual focus work now and treated myself to some very nice MF lenses to do it with. The extra practice has helped me attain focus faster and learn how to stay truly still while taking the shot. But beyond that all credit goes to the tech (and the glass of course).

Helmut R · Post by **Helmut R** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 10:32 am

I apply occasionally a similar method for photographing living creatures, but with Batis 2/40 CF on sony a7r2 with F=11. The idea is to enlarge the sharpness zone by using a shorter focal length and cropping. A disadvantage however is the close distance to the creature. My other method for photographing small creatures is with ApoRodagon 4/80 (mapping 1:infinity up to 1:2) or ApoRodagon D 1x (1:3 up to 1:1), and mostly flash (Nissin i 40 + plastic bottle diffusor.- Perhaps I post a few results the other day.

Helmut

Helmut R · Post by **Helmut R** » Fri May 03, 2019 3:17 am

Let me add a few numbers: My monitor (10:16) for looking photographs has 2560x1600 pixels, the a7r2 produces a pictures (3.2) with 7956x5312. Comparing the short sides I get a factor 3.3. Cropping my pictures so that I get everything 1:1 (up to the different formats), my effective focal length for the Batis 2/40 CF increases from 4cm to more than 12cm. At the minimal focusing distance (working distance from the front of the lense is about 13cm) an object of 1cm is mapped to 15 cm on my monitor. - (A side remark: The Batis 2/40 CF has a strange feature: In the near range it closes the diafragm, presumaly simulating the effective f-value in case of barrel extension and to keep the quality range of the lens high. I dislike that.)

Regards, Helmut